Bloxham: Recovery will slow next year

IRELAND’S economic recovery will slow next year, forcing the Government to implement further austerity measures, with little prospects of the numbers out of work falling below 14% — 293,000 people unemployed.

These are among the grim forecasts in the Bloxham: Irish Quarterly Economic Outlook: December 2011 in which Bloxham chief economist Alan McQuaid says the Government faces a “tall order” in establishing sufficient improvement in sentiment towards Ireland for a return to the sovereign debt markets in 2013.

Mr McQuaid estimates there is a one-in-four chance the euro will break up in the next 12 to 24 months, but he believes “the European Central Bank will come to the rescue in the end and print money as a lender of last resort”.