The National Treasury Management Agency plans to issue €500 million of short-term debt on Thursday.

The State’s debt agency will sell the so-called Treasury Bills, which are due to mature in 12 months’ time, by way of an auction on Thursday morning, it said in a statement.

Last Thursday, the NTMA sold €1 billion of long-term bonds, about 12 hours before it first emerged that the UK was headed towards a hung parliament, bringing the total amount of such debt raised so far this year to €9.35 billion. Its full-year target is between €9 billion and €13 billion.

The NTMA’s last sale of 12-month Treasury Bills in March was priced to carry a negative yield of 0.43 per cent, meaning investors paid the agency for the privelege of holding their money for a year.