Ireland may still need extra budget savings, warns economic thinktank

An economic thinktank says additional fiscal adjustments are still warranted despite the latest troika review suggesting that Ireland is on course to meet its deficit reduction targets.

While Finance Minister Michael Noonan said that the country remained on track to meet its 8.6% of GDP budget deficit target for this year, he is expected to officially downgrade the Government’s economic growth forecasts in the coming days — possibly from 1.3% to more in line with consensus estimates of between 0.5% and 0.75%.

Yesterday, he said that, on the back of the latest troika review of Ireland’s bailout programme, that there was “nothing on the horizon that would require a mini-budget”.