ECB "takes note" of Ireland's Anglo Irish debt plan

The European Central Bank "took note" of Ireland's emergency law to liquidate Anglo Irish bank, ECB President Mario Draghi said on Thursday, declining to comment in detail.

"On Ireland, there wasn't a decision to take, we, the governing council, unanimously took note of the Irish operation... We don't want to enter into the details of the swap," he told the bank's monthly news conference when asked about the plan.

Draghi referred reporters to the Irish government and Irish central bank for more details.

Anglo Irish was brought down by a real estate crash after a bubble inflated by cheap credit. Fearful of knock-on effects, the Irish state stepped in, landing itself with a huge debts that forced it into austerity budgets as the economy shrank and obliged it to accept a conditional bailout from the EU and IMF.

Under a plan, first reported by Reuters, 28 billion euros in promissory notes will be replaced with long-term government bonds, meaning that Ireland can make more gradual repayments.

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.)