The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) will auction €500m in 15-year bonds on Thursday, February 12th.

The NTMA has already sold €11.75bn in long-term debt since the start of 2014.

Thursday's auction will take place between 8am and 10am - it will be conducted on the Bloomberg Auction System and will be confined to recognised primary dealers.

A non-competitive auction for 15 percent of the amount sold in the competitive auction will immediately follow and will close at 10am on Friday, February 13th.

Last week the agency announced that it had completed the second tranche of early repayments of Ireland's loans owed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This was a payment of €3.5bn.

When added to the larger repayment made in December, the combined repayments made come to €12.5bn - this is over half of the €22.5bn that Ireland borrowed from the IMF.