Ireland faces lower living standards, warns OECD

IRELAND will have permanently lower living standards, the world’s leading economic authority last night warned in a damning assessment of the state of the nation.

Delivering an even grimmer than feared outlook, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was highly critical of boom-time government policies and insisted only a raft of severe cuts would turn the situation around.

Cuts to the minimum wage, unemployment benefits, health, education and welfare budgets were all called for by the OECD, which also urged the introduction of a property tax and endorsed the €5.3 billion savaging of public spending outlined in the Bord Snip report.