THE DEPUTY HEAD of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has sought to allay fears about the downgrading of Ireland’s growth rate earlier this week.

Having previously predicted growth of 0.9 per cent for Ireland in 2011, the IMF downgraded that to 0.5 per cent on Monday but speaking after the government delivered its first review of the EU/IMF bailout package, Chopra sought to allay Irish fears.

He said that historically Ireland’s growth forecast data tended to be volatile and added that near term forecasts tended to be “very volatile”, adding that forecasts that marked down Ireland’s growth was “not surprising.”

He said the IMF forecasts for growth in 2012 remained in “the region of 2 per cent”.

At a joint press conference between the so-called troika of the European Commission (EC), European Central Bank (ECB) and the IMF, representatives from all three organisations underlined the important of the government’s planned “jobs initiative programme”.

István Székely from the European Commission said that the creation of jobs was an “absolute priority” and added that the troika and the Irish government wanted to put as little a burden on the taxpayer as possible in implementing the conditions of the programme.

The European Central Bank’s Klaus Masuch said that the ECB was very satisfied with the restructuring of the Irish banking system announced by the government last month.

On the change in minimum wage, the troika said that this was a decision for the Irish government with Székely adding that it was a “pragmatic” solution.

Chopra added that in Ireland and globally the crisis will not be over until jobs are created.

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