Irish banks' reliance on ECB unchanged in Sept -cbank

DUBLIN, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Irish lenders' reliance on emergency funding was little changed in September with outstanding loans of 120 billion euros, the country's central bank said on Friday.

Banks had 79.1 billion euros in outstanding loans from the European Central Bank as of Sept. 28, unchanged from August, while emergency loans from the Irish central bank fell slightly to 40.6 billion euros from 40.8 billion euros a month before.

Irish banks are heavily dependent on loans from the ECB and the Irish central bank to run their day-to-day operations.

Under the country's EU/IMF bailout they must shrink their balance sheets to ease that exposure, which peaked at 187 billion euros in February 2011.

(Reporting by Conor Humphries; Editing by John Stonestreet)

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Keywords: IRELAND BANKS/