ESRI: More spending cuts needed

There still has to be a significant cut to public expenditure, which may have to include further job losses across the public sector even if the Government is successful in securing a deal on the bank debt, according to the ESRI Quarterly Economic Commentary.

The institute is forecasting that GDP will increase by 1.8% this year and by 2.1% in 2013, while GNP will contract by 0.2% this year before posting a 0.7% increase in 2013.

If the Government is to meet expenditure targets set by the troika, then another voluntary redundancy scheme may have to be looked at in the public sector.