Irish debt agency wants to smooth funding needs from 2018

* Irish debt agency mulling inflation-linked, dollar issues

* Debt chief says lack of contagion from Greece gratifying

* With still elevated debt levels, NTMA to remain cautious (Adds comments on Greece, national debt)

By Padraic Halpin

DUBLIN, July 23 (Reuters) - Ireland (Other OTC: IRLD - news) will consider easing its funding requirements from 2018 to 2020 by buying back some debt or offering to switch bonds due for repayment in those years, the head of the country's debt agency said on Thursday.

With Ireland fully funded for the rest of this year and most of 2016, the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) will also look to diversify the current "generic" debt it offers investors over the medium term, Conor O'Kelly said.

That will likely include entering the dollar market and launching inflation-linked bonds for the first time, types of debt it has been considering issuing since 2012 before concentrating on longer-term bonds when bond yields were at record lows.

"We are looking at 2018, 2019, 2020 where there is almost 35 billion euros of maturities, we will be focused on managing ahead to try and maybe get some switching and buybacks going. That will be a significant focus," O'Kelly told a news conference.

Ireland has 24 billion euros of debt due to mature between 2016 and 2018.

Ireland's economy has become the fastest growing in Europe since it completed an international bailout and resumed regular bond auctions last year, and fears that Greece may have to quit the euro zone have had little impact on Irish borrowing costs.

O'Kelly said it was particularly gratifying that yields held steady when countries such as Portugal, Italy and Spain rose, suggesting Ireland has moved away from those periphery countries to the so-called "semi-core" of safer debt belonging to countries like Belgium.

But he said the NTMA would remain cautious as Irish debt remains high following the crisis. Finance Minister Michael Noonan said Ireland's debt to GDP ratio will likely fall below 100 percent next year from a peak of 125 percent in 2013.

"Whether its Grexit, Brexit, China or the Federal Reserve - when you're a small country like Ireland with still elevated debt levels, then you're in the prudent contingent management business," said O'Kelly, who took over as head of the debt agency this year.

"When the market gets volatile and a place that you don't want to be, as a small country like Ireland, you need to be able to step away and still find the exchequer and take care of your requirements." (Editing by Hugh Lawson)