Minister for Finance Brian Cowen has said he does not believe the current turmoil in world stock markets will have a bad effect on the Irish economy.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio's News At One, Brian Cowen said the fundamentals of the Irish economy were strong, and the country was well poised to take on the international challenges ahead.
He said the country has a dynamic work force and strong public finances.
He said he had compiled the recent Budget taking all of the risk factors into account.
Minister Cowen insisted inflationary pressures should moderate, but said what had happened on world markets in recent weeks needed to be analysed and assessed.
He said he approved of the way the European Central Bank and other central banks had intervened, and believed the actions had been viewed favourably in other parts of the world.
Mr Cowen said as a small economy, Ireland is more exposed than most to the problems in the US. He said the country needed to look at improving competitiveness and productivity.
Brian Cowen said the upcoming pay talks were important, but that people needed to keep an eye on the big picture and not put job security at risk when agreeing pay rises.
The minister said that Irish economic success is sometimes wrongly interpreted as being solely as a result of the expansion in the construction industry.
He stressed that Irish economic performance was in fact due to fast productivity growth across the country.
