Irish economy moving towards recovery

Ireland is set for economic independence, an Irish cabinet minister has said.

The minister for jobs, enterprise and innovation Richard Bruton has insisted that an end to the Republic’s reliance on the so-called troika, (European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund) is in sight.

He could not however say whether Ireland would regain full economic sovereignty by the end of 2013.

Bruton is confident that the Republic will receive financial help from EU states to counter the €30bn owed to creditors and depositors of the now defunct Anglo Irish Bank. This would take the financial pressure off Irish taxpayers, who are currently paying for mistakes made by the bank.

Fellow EU states, particularly Germany, have promised funds to reduce the costs of repaying the so-called Anglo “promissory notes”, says the Irish government.

A large proportion of the coalition government’s credibility over the next year rests on its ability to negotiate a rescue deal from the EU on the banking debt.

Economy in transition

Bruton backed up his claims by announcing a net increase of 3,804 jobs among Irish companies over the past year. Bruton said: “Ireland is an economy in transition. We have had to rebuild our economy based on exports, and Irish-owned exporting companies have had a really good year … the best performance since 2006 and it reverses a four-year trend of decline in employment.”

“Ireland has hit every financial target that it has been set and that happened even in an environment of growth under-performing. We have delivered the change but clearly the key to our recovery is to re-build based on an exporting franchise.

“Ireland is already in transition towards moving away from dependence on the troika. We have already started re-entering the markets in a small way … we are not going to be putting down dates or artificial deadlines.

“Our record speaks for itself as we have hit every marker on the way and we are determined to do that.”

Bruton said that an EU deal on the Anglo Irish “promissory notes” was a key element in not just Ireland’s recovery plan, but Europe altogether.

Ireland has just embarked on its run as EU president and Bruton said the Irish government would use this to push fellow Europeans for the deal.