NTMA raises additional €1.25bn through bond auction

The State’s debt management agency has raised a further €1.25 billion through the sale of Government bonds at auction.

The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) said it completed an auction of bonds maturing in 2029, 2037 and 2045.

With the completion of the auction, the NTMA has issued €13.25 billion of benchmark bonds to date this year.

The NTMA borrowed €24 billion on the international bond markets last year at a record-low average rate of 0.2 per cent, and is on course to raise up to €20 billion of cheap debt in 2021 to deal with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

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Its chief executive Conor O’Kelly said last month he is not really worried that taxpayers will be saddled with a spike in interest costs when billions of euro of Covid-related borrowings need to be refinanced in future.

While Mr O’Kelly said countries do face interest-rate risks in the future as they refinance money borrowed to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, he highlighted that the ECB and other policymakers will ensure that the market environment “will be benign”.