The bank's governors have been holding their usual monthly meeting in Frankfurt today.

The decision means the main lending rate remains at an all-time low of 0.5 per cent.

The decision will be good news for around 400,000 Irish families whose tracker mortgage repayments will remain at record lows.

The President of the European Central Bank says no decision has been made on setting up a temporarily second bailout for Ireland.

Mario Draghi says it's up to the Eurozone's finance ministers to decide if they want a second precautionary bailout to be set up.

The second bailout fund is one of the options being considered to ensure Ireland is able to borrow from the bond markets when the current bailout ends.

Mr Draghi says the key to making sure Ireland gets out of the bailout is to continue making tough economic decisions:

Mario Draghi says keeping to the targets of the bailout is the best way to ensure that Ireland can borrow without the Troika's help.

Mr Draghi says no decision has been made on whether to set up a second precautionary bailout to help ease Ireland's way out of the bailout.

But the Italian says the most important step to finishing the bailout is not to undo some of the previous good work:Mr Draghi said the rates were likely to remain at their record lows for some time to come: