Ireland Has A Good Recovery Plan Now - Will it Implement it?

John Delaney, CEO, Intrade
Submitted: 07 17 2009

Well at least it has an idea on how to solidify its foundation.

Implementation of public spending report would reduce structural deficit by 3% of GDP

A Group set up to recommend how we reduce our public service numbers and costs released its report yesterday. It detailed €5.2bn in expenditure cuts. This equals 3% of 2009 GDP.

Top elements are...
Cut public employee numbers by 5% or 17,000 (€700ml payroll saving plus a fortune in non-payroll costs)
Cut social welfare payments by 5%

Lets hope the cuts happen soon. The Group think they can be in the majority in 2010.

If these cuts are implemented in full then our Government Deficit could get to 7% by end-2011.