FG: Spending cuts and job losses the only way

MAJOR spending cuts and public sector job losses are the only way to fuel Ireland’s way out of recession, Fine Gael last night warned.

The party’s financial spokesman, Michael Noonan, dismissed claims his plans threatened to do deep harm to frontline services, insisting that the alternative of pushing the burden of deficit reduction onto taxation would lock the country into slump.

Unveiling Fine Gael’s fiscal agenda, Mr Noonan claimed there was enough “waste” in the public sector to see 30,000 jobs slashed from back room operations.