Irish finance minister confident on early IMF loan payback despite delay

MILAN (Reuters) - Ireland may have to wait before getting formal acceptance of its plan to pay back early the International Monetary Fund's part of its bailout loans but is confident of agreement from European Union partners, Finance Minister Michael Noonan said on Friday.

Dublin was forced to seek a special bailout from the European Union and IMF in 2010 to avoid bankruptcy. Having since returned to the market, it wants to repay the higher interest IMF loan early to cut its debt servicing costs but it must first get the support of other creditors.

After a series of talks with EU officials, including Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Jyrki Katainen on Monday, Noonan said he was confident there would be no resistance to the move. But he said some practical difficulties could delay formal approval.

"There's no pushback, there's no opposition that I can identify so far but there are complications," he told reporters at the margins of a meeting of euro zone finance ministers in Milan.

"There's a Swedish election and they may not be in a position to make a political decision in Sweden even though there's general support from what we're hearing," he said.

"So I think we'll get a very good indication that we'll get support but maybe not formally today and tomorrow."

As part of the EU/IMF bailout package, Ireland also obtained bilateral loans from a number of countries, including a 600 million euro loan from Sweden, which elections on Sunday.

Ireland's IMF loans carry an interest rate of almost 5 percent, compared with a market rate of less than 2 percent. Under its bailout deal, it must repay all its creditors at the same time, unless it first obtains their agreement.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie)