We must try to maintain positive momentum

Looking back over the events of the past seven years, it is hard to believe the Irish economy and its financial system finds itself in the situation that it is in.

I certainly feared back in 2010 that if a firm grasp was not taken of the public finances, Ireland was on the road to bankruptcy at worst, or partial debt default at best. Bond yields had soared to levels that effectively made it impossible to fund the unsustainable borrowing requirement that it had. At the end of 2010, the troika stepped in and provided Ireland with the €67.5bn that would be required to run the country over the following three years.

In return for this, the parties to the troika insisted on a number of conditions, the most important of which was the commitment to reduce the annual borrowing requirement to 3% of GDP by the end of 2015.