Ireland could be facing even deeper cuts in next year’s budget, with continuing job loses and falling domestic demand threatening the country’s fragile recovery.

It’s been billed as the sale of the century — the sales of state assets from Ireland, Greece and Portugal, the three countries being bailed out by the EU and IMF to raise up to €58 billion in total to pay off creditors.

A French and German paper to convince the EU to harmonise corporate tax rates met with stiff opposition from a number of countries, including Austria that described it as a “missile”.

The Greek deal will make its debts a priority but it has lost the trust of the EU leadership and its fellow member states, writes Europe Correspondent Ann Cahill

Take a leaf out of our book Germany

Members of the European Parliament have voted to freeze their budget for the next two years and end the monthly trip to Strasbourg which costs €180m per annum.

Irish banks are in line to receive €300 million to lend to SMEs at preferential rates from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and other projects such as wind energy generation are in the pipeline.

Irish pensioners are projected to suffer the biggest fall in the real value of their occupational pensions in the EU over the next few decades, according to European Commission figures.

Final decisions on the Greek bailout should be taken on Monday after Greece delivered on further cuts and political assurances at a special teleconference between eurozone finance ministers last night.

The vast majority of people living in Ireland (80%) believe that corruption is a major problem for the country; that it is part of Irish business culture and is widespread among politicians, according a new EU-wide survey.