Gilmore: Austerity plan is on track
His confident opinion was supported by German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, who described the country as having enormous potential, and said there was good reason to believe in its economic recovery.
Mr Gilmore said Ireland was on track in implementing its bailout programme and that Ireland’s “different set of circumstances” from Greece will protect it from a similar downgrade.
“We are mindful that we do not want what is happening in other countries to have a spillover effect in Ireland,” he said, adding that talk of the country’s sovereign debt being relegated to junk status was an academic question since Ireland was out of the market.
He agreed there were difficult challenges ahead. “We have a difficult decision that as a Government we have to make in the period ahead, but the Government is determined to bring about economy recovery.”
However, little progress has been made in getting the interest rate on the rescue loan cut — a move which France continues to block, EU sources confirmed.
Mr Gilmore said he believed the country’s progress would result in the reduction and that Mr Westerwelle understood the issue.
Despite the German vote of confidence, fears rose that the crisis was spreading as the price of Italian borrowing rose to record levels.
