European Union leaders meeting in Brussels have rejected pressure to inject more money into their economies to battle the recession.
They defended the stimulus packages they have already launched, despite calls led by the US for Europe to spend more.
But the EU has agreed a €5 billion energy and technology package, which includes €110m for the electricity interconnector between Ireland and Wales.
Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin has rejected suggestions that EU finance ministers meeting in Brussels discussed possible rescue packages for euro zone member states. Speaking on Morning Ireland, he said ministers discussed increasing funding limits for countries outside the euro zone, such as Hungary and Latvia, which had already been helped.
The Minister was speaking after the Reuters news agency carried quotes from a member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party, Otto Bernhardt.
The report quoted him as saying that euro zone countries had agreed a rescue plan to prevent members of the euro zone going bankrupt.
EU's €50 billion eastern promise
EU leaders have also pledged €125 billion in support for eastern Europe and the International Monetary Fund.
The leaders agreed at a summit in Brussels to double loans available to eastern Europe to €50 billion and add €75 billion to the IMF's lending capacity.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the European leaders had agreed to do 'whatever is necessary to restore jobs and growth'.
The €75 billion would be Europe's contribution to the overall increase in IMF funds, which remains to be agreed by the leading economic powers.
The IMF has repeatedly warned that its resources, and therefore its ability to lend to countries in difficulty, could dwindle dangerously low if the economic crisis persists.
With eastern Europe struggling to cope with the crisis, the leaders agreed to double a standing credit line available to EU countries that do not benefit from the shelter of the euro.
The existing €25 billion credit line is being rapidly depleted after Hungary and Latvia drew nearly €10 billion from it and other countries likely to follow soon.
German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck has said he did not think G20 leaders meeting in London will produce a blacklist of tax havens.
'As far as I see, there will be no such list at the London meeting,' he said after the meeting of EU leaders in Brussels.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she could not imagine any country that accepted OECD standards for exchanging information on tax matters would be on a blacklist but the mere talk of this 'virtual list' had already had positive effects.
