Fitch: Ireland is the ‘outlier’ but credit issues persist

The Irish and Spanish economies have pulled away from the group of countries in the eurozone periphery, but employment growth, bad loans and credit remain issues, according to a credit ratings firm Fitch Ratings.

Its major report on the Irish, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian economies compares growth rates, costs, the health of the banks and bad loans since the depth of the eurozone crisis in 2010 and 2011.

Ireland and Spain have recovered rapidly, and opened up a huge gap with Italy and Portugal but Ireland — where the slump was deepest — is the clear “outlier” of the four countries in terms of super-charged growth, Fitch said.