I would think the capital guarantee refers to getting the par value of the bond back when it matures. But it might be more prudent, if you have not done so already, to confirm the conditions under which the bond is callable.
As for the Government guarantee, this guarantees eligible liabilities of up to five year maturity by a participating institution from the date it joined the scheme until 31 December 2011. So, as BoI joined the scheme on 11/1/10 (i.e. it is a participating institution), you need to confirm if your bond is an ‘eligible liability’ under the Credit Institutions (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) Scheme 2009. In brief, the types of covered liabilities under the ELG scheme are: senior unsecured certificates of deposit; senior unsecured commercial paper; other senior unsecured bonds and notes, and other forms of senior unsecured debt. Even where your bond is an ‘eligible liability’ you need to confirm if it is guaranteed under the scheme. For this to happen, BoI must have a ‘guarantee certificate’ for the bond or for the programme under which the bond was issued. These certificates are issued by the NTMA, which operates the scheme. So you need to get confirmation from BoI if your bond is an eligible liability and if the BoI has obtained a guarantee certificate for it, issued pursuant to the Credit Institutions (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) Scheme 2009. There is a lot of info on this on the NTMA web site. [broken link removed]