DUBLIN, Ireland, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- Irish officials Monday tried to soothe investors' fears that Ireland may seek an International Monetary Fund or EU bailout, despite EU pressure to do just that.
Dick Roche, Ireland's junior minister for European affairs, Monday denounced reports that Ireland needed emergency funds as "simply wrong."
"There is continuous talk going on backwards and forwards about the level of our debt but the suggestion that constitutes going to the IMF or the bailout is just irresponsible," he told Irish radio station Newstalk.
Media reports that Ireland may need between $60 billion and $120 billion in outside aid to balance its budget and consolidate its banks have sent markets reeling and the euro into a downward spiral. Lending costs for Ireland also increased significantly over the past two weeks.
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Eurozone finance ministers are to discuss the situation of Ireland, Portugal and Greece, other debt-troubled economies, Tuesday at a meeting in Brussels.
The European Union wants Dublin to accept outside help to avert another Greek-style debt speculation crisis, which damaged other eurozone economies and weakened the euro. Germany, eager to restructure the euro-zone, wants private investors to help pay for future rescues, a plan that has seen bonds of Ireland, Portugal and Greece plummeting.
The European Central Bank has tried to stop that trend, buy buying up bonds of the deficit-laden eurozone countries.
ECB Vice President Vitor Constancio Monday said in Vienna that the Irish government could ask the emergency fund set up by the EU in response to the Greek crisis to recapitalize its financial institutions, which according to the Irish central bank have outstanding ECB loans of $177 billion.
Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan may use Tuesday's meeting to initiate such a move, the Irish Independent newspaper reported Monday.
Ireland's Justice Minister Dermot Ahern called the media reports "fiction."
"We obviously have to ignore a lot of this speculation because it is only speculation. We have not applied. There are no negotiations going on. If there were, government would be aware of it and we are not aware of it," Ahern told Irish TV station RTE on Sunday. "There is nothing going on at the direction of government in relation to this."
Meanwhile, Brussels revealed Monday that Greece's budget deficit is greater than anticipated. The 2009 Greek budget deficit climbed to 15.4 percent of gross domestic product, up from the previous estimate of 13.6 percent deficit, Eurostat said.
Holger Schmieding, chief economist of the Berenberg Bank, said Ireland is better off than Greece at the moment.
"Ireland has better chances than Greece of pulling itself out of the swamp," he told Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.
