MINISTER FOR FINANCE BRIAN LENIHAN has insisted that Ireland won’t need to call on an EU bailout fund for assistance, RTÉ reports.

He said Ireland has not lost its sovereignty.

Speaking to BBC’s Newsnight last night, Lenihan said that while markets currently don’t believe in Ireland, the government is working to resolve problems with the public finances and Irish banking.

He said the economy would gradually become right and regain market confidence, and said Ireland will return to the markets next year.

Irish 10-year bonds rose above 7.9% yesterday and above 8% this morning.

Last week the ECB bought €711m of bonds, but refused to reveal which countries had been included in the sale. The Wall St journal speculated the Ireland, Portugal and Greece were most likely to have been involved.

Meanwhile, rumours have begun circulating on Twitter of a possible IMF bailout for the country.

Earlier, CMC Markets’ chief market strategist Ashraf Laidi tweeted:

ONLY RUMOUR SO FAR: hearing talk of possible IMF DEAL for Ireland here at the Dublin IFSS. #forex #euro #IMF NOTHINGconfirmed $

Neil Hume from the Financial Times sent this message:

WARNINGl THIS IS RAW. TOTALLY SPECULATIVE. “hearing talk of possible IMF DEAL for Ireland”, traders.