The Irish government is to use the last €6.4bn in its public pension fund to invest in the country's economic recovery, completing a four-year process of requisitioning the once independently-governed fund to help meet the costs of Ireland's bailout and bank restructuring.

Ireland's minister for finance, Michael Noonan, said in a statement yesterday that the government planned to "reorient" the National Pensions Reserve Fund by selling off its remaining investments, including global equities, fixed income and property, and making the money "available for commercial investment in Ireland" instead.