Fiscal council to help draw up budgets of the future

FUTURE budgets will be drawn up with the help of a fiscal council of independent experts while the Department of Finance will obliged by law to work towards balancing the country’s income and expenditure.

These are two of the conditions of Ireland’s €85 billion EU/IMF loan package, formally signed off by the member states’ finance ministers in Brussels yesterday.

Britain succeeded in adding a clause to the conditions ensuring it and other member states have a say in the design and implementation of the stress tests on Irish banks which must be carried out by March.