The Central Bank's €1.8 billion reserves look set to remain outside the reach of the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, in the wake of a review concluded within the last month.

A spokesman for the Central Bank confirmed yesterday that a study into the adequacy of the Bank's reserves had been completed over the past few weeks.

The spokesman said it would be "inappropriate" to comment on its contents.

A copy of the review and its conclusions has been sent to Mr McCreevy, who has taken it into consideration in the framing of next year's Budget.

A Department of Finance spokesman said that it had been taken into account in the Minister's calculations on the surplus he might draw from the Central Bank in 2004.

This surplus estimate will be included in a pre-budget White Paper to be published at the end of this week. Early indications suggest that the actual figure will be lower than €575 million Central Bank surplus due to be transferred to the Exchequer this year.

This would suggest that the Bank has concluded that it does not hold excessive reserves and will thus not be making additional funds available to the Minister for Finance.

Mr McCreevy would be likely to use the cash to help ease State borrowing requirements if it was made available.

The Bank's governor, Mr John Hurley, noted in June that reserves held by the Irish Central Bank were well below the average of other euro-zone states.

In 2001, Mr McCreevy invited the Bank's board to consider what extra funds could be transferred to the Exchequer. He was told that a review of reserves would be carried out when the euro changeover was complete.