Minister confident of improved debt deal

Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald has said the Irish economy is over the worst of the crisis.

Francis Fitzgerald was responding to comments that a deal on Ireland's bank debt needs to be made by October in order to return to the markets next year and exit the bailout programme.

It has been widely speculated that the Government will not be able strike a deal with Europe in that timeframe.

Minister Fitzgerald is confident a deal will be done, however.

"I think you have to see the quality of the negotiations, the detail and the responses," she said.

"Now if you look at a number of years ago, we were talking about €20bn.

"Now we're still talking about €8.5bn that has to be found, huge amounts, and the low-hanging fruit has been taken hence the kind of discussions we've had … in the last few weeks."