Irish-based banks' reliance on emergency funding from the European Central Bank (ECB) and Ireland's central bank fell to its lowest level in more than two years in November, at €116 billion.

That compares to €118.8 billion the previous month, data from the Central Bank showed.

The banks are reliant on ECB and central bank loans to fund their day-to-day operations after losing tens of billions of euro in deposits and being largely excluded from wholesale lending markets.Under the country's EU/IMF bailout they must shrink their balance sheets to ease that exposure, which peaked at €187 billion in February 2011.

Banks had €75.7 billion in outstanding loans from the ECB at the end of November, compared to €78.2 billion at the end of October.

Irish banks' emergency loans from the Central Bank fell were unchanged at €40.7 billion.

Other figures from the Central Bank today show that lending to households declined by €96.9 million at the end of September, following a quarterly decline of €0.7 per cent. The annual fall in credit to Irish households was 3.4 per cent.

Including loans for house purchase, the total amount of loans to private households outstanding at end-September 2012 was €145.1 billion.

The total deposits held in resident credit institutions by Irish private households was

€87.2 billion at end-September 2012, following a quarterly increase of 0.4 per cent and an annual increase of 0.8 per cent.