Ireland would be lucky to hold onto its sole remaining AAA rating from Moody's, the chief executive of the National Treasury Management Agency said today.
Michael Somers also said that the discount at which the country's "bad bank" plans to buy financial institutions' risky property loans had not yet been worked out but the decision presented enormous implications.
"We would be lucky to hold onto it," Mr Somers told a parliamentary committee in relation to the AAA rating which Moody's warned last month it could cut.
Standard & Poor's and Fitch have already downgraded the rating and Moody's said it could do likewise within three months as crises in the public finances and banking sectors have sent debt levels significantly higher.
The former "Celtic Tiger" economy could see its historically low debt levels surge to potentially 100 per cent-plus of gross domestic product (GDP) next year, from about 41 per cent in 2008, as it tries to cleanse its banking sector of tens of billions of euros in soured property loans.
The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) is being set up to manage the loans that have a total book value of up to €90 billion, and Mr Somers said the undisclosed discount Nama will buy the loans at in return for government debt was still being discussed.
"We have not found any solution," Mr Somers, whose colleague Brendan McDonagh was named Nama interim manager last week, said in relation to discount. "It's going to be an enormous dilemma. I can see great potential for arguments down in the courts for this if we don't get it right... The implications of this thing are enormous," he added.
The chief executive also said that the NTMA hopes to raise €1 billion via a bond auction scheduled for May 19th.
Reuters