The International Monetary Fund has said that Ireland has no choice but to take strong and credible action to try to restore its finances.
The comments came at a news conference in Washington ahead of meetings of the IMF and World Bank in the city on Friday.
The Senior IMF Economist, Jorg Decressin, said the Irish economy was still struggling from the unwinding property boom and a banking crisis that was leading to market pressures on interest rates.
He said the IMF supported the tough measures being taken by the Government.
‘We believe that the economy after contracting by about 0.3% this year will again grow next year and reach around 2.3% growth, which is broadly unchanged from the forecast that we made in April,’ Mr Decressin said.
‘In the end it will be helped along by strong exports because the global recovery is gathering steam, even if there will be a temporary slowdown during the second half of this year and the first half of next year, and that will help pull the Irish economy along.’
IMF Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard added that countries such as Ireland and Greece have no choice than ‘to do fairly dramatic things in as clear a manner as possible’.
