Cowen has not ruled out revisiting Croke Park deal

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen has not ruled out revisiting the Croke Park agreement, but he indicated that he will wait and see if the deal yields the kind of public sector savings he needs before revisiting it.

And senior EU officials have come out in favour of not cutting much more from public spending but concentrating instead on raising taxes to save at least €17.5 billion on spending over the next four years.

Mr Cowen said the Government will prepare the four-year budget plan taking into account the agreement with unions for no forced redundancies as well as no further pay or pension cuts.