Ireland has appointed several banks to act as bookrunners and global coordinators for the potential sale of a 25 percent stake in AIB and has said the nearest window to sell the shares would be between mid-May and early July.

"You need a few things to align. We have them all aligning at this point in time and markets are the variable so I certainly wouldn't be saying anything other than it's a good time, given the market," Bernard Byrne told reporters.

(Reporting by Conor Humphries; editing by Jason Neely)