The State's debt management agency will auction €750 million of short-term debt on Thursday. The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) will auction the debt, known as treasury bills, which will mature on October 19th of this year.

Treasury bills form a small part of the State’s borrowing programme. The NTMA has said it will issue between €20 billion and €24 billion of debt this year, but the treasury bills are not included in those figures which relate to longer-term debt. The bills offer investors an alternative product to longer-term debt which can take years to mature.

A treasury bill auction in April took place for debt due to mature six months from the issue date. The €750 million auction then was sold at a negative yield, meaning investors would get repaid slightly less than they lent to the State.

Before that there was a €500 million auction in March for a five-month bill maturing in August. That too was at a negative yield of -0.39 per cent.