Ireland seeks 10-yr holiday on bank bailout loan-report

DUBLIN Jan 29 (Reuters) - The Irish government is lobbying the European Central Bank to allow it to delay by a decade the repayment of 31 billion euros ($40.7 billion) of loans used to bail out the country's banking sector, the Sunday Times reported.

The government has said it is discussing several options with the ECB about how to reduce the cost of the bank bailout, including refinancing the promissory notes used to bail out now-defunct Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society. The notes carry an interest bill of 17 billion euros.

A spokesman for the Department of Finance did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. ($1 = 0.7615 euros) (Reporting by Conor Humphries; editing by Sophie Walker)