The European Commission has cleared the payment of €2.3 billion of bailout funding to the Government. The decision comes following the completion of the sixth quarterly review of the EU-IMF financial assistance programme for Ireland.

The commission said the implementation of the terms of the bailout “remain strong”.

An additional €500 million is expected to be disbursed from bilateral EU donors who are not in the euro zone – Britain, Denmark and Sweden. This would bring total

funding to Ireland to about €34.9 billion (€32.8 billion from the euro zone bailout funds and €2.1 billion from bilateral EU donors) since the launch of the programme in 2010. It represents 82 per cent of the total amount committed by the euro zone rescue funds to Ireland.