Irish Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan has said he expects the Irish Republic to accept a “very substantial loan” as part of an EU-backed bail-out.
Mr Honohan told RTE radio he expected the loan to amount to “tens of billions” of euros.
The final decision will be up to the Irish government, which has yet to comment.
Mr Honohan’s comments come as a team of international officials meet in Dublin for further talks on the debt crisis.
I still don’t understand the logic of saddling a debtor with more debt. Yes, it buys time, but unless the root of what caused the debt in the first place is drastically fixed, the same problem will return. There’s a difference between a Liquidity crisis and an Insolvency crisis. The EU doesn’t seem to grasp this.