Cowen Insists 'No Bailout Sought'

The Irish Premier, Brian Cowen has again insisted that Ireland is making no application to Europe for a bailout, stressing that Ireland is 'fully funded into the middle of next year'.

The Taoiseach made the remark in an interview with RTÉ in the wake of continuing and growing speculation on the issue.

Mr Cowen even took issue with the use of the word "bailout", saying that the term implied Ireland was trying not to meet its obligations, "such pejorative terms" he said "are adding to the confusion".

Ministers will be discussing the crisis and preparing the four-year budgetary plan at a cabinet meeting today, while on Monday, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern confirmed that the plan is to be published next week and that it will try and allay the uncertainty in the international markets that have been aggravating the State's recent difficulties.

Meanwhile, Brian Lenihan will be travelling to Brussels today for a meeting of EU finance ministers.

Other EU government's are extremely concerned with Ireland's current position, which is acting as a contagion and causing market unrest to spread to other vulnerable States, such as Portugal and Spain.

Yesterday, Mr Lenihan said Ireland was working with its European partners on how "best to underpin financial and banking stability within the Euro area".

Also today, Minister for European affairs Dick Roche urged EU finance ministers not to "panic" and that there was no need for Ireland to trigger "international support mechanisms".

Mr Roche told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "There's no application for IMF or EU funds and it's not helpful to speculate.

"I would hope that after the meeting this afternoon there would be more logic introduced to this. There's no reason why we should trigger an IMF or EU-type bail-out.

"There is a problem with liquidity in banks but I don't think the appropriate response to that would be for European finance ministers to panic."

The European Central Bank said aid would be available to the Government, but Ministers are sticking to their word and flatly denying any such assistance would be taken, or indeed is necessary.

Along with emphasising Ireland's strong export recovery, Mr Cowen said recovery would involve improving the State's financial stability so that the "cost of money overall will start to reduce".

Speaking yesterday, Mr Cowen said that if the current cost of money "became the norm" at its current high level, it would make it "difficult for banks to become the engines of recovery".

"Getting the cost of money down," he said "helps to effect recovery more quickly."

He said the Government was "determined to work our way through these issues".

(DW/BMcC)