‘Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart’

Finance Minister Michael Noonan unveiled his €2.5bn adjustment with a warning that if others had their way the adjustment could have been a whole lot worse.

Quoting WB Yeats “too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart”, Mr Noonan said there was a view that the consolidation should go further, but acknowledged people had already made too many sacrifices.

But, he said, Ireland would get back its purse in December when it exits the bailout arrangements