THE TROIKA OF the European Union, International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank will present the findings of its third review of the Ireland’s bailout programme this afternoon.
The government is expected to emphasise the number of targets it has so far met in a news conference to be held by the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin at around midday.
The verdict of the troika will then be delivered at around 1pm this afternoon with Ajai Chopra of the IMF, Istvan Szekely of the European Commission and Klaus Masuch of the ECB having spent recent days assessing whether Ireland is making the necessary progress on its programme to ensure the release of the next installment of bailout loans.
Having been in the country since last week, the troika has met with the opposition and social partners as well as the government where austerity measures for December’s budget are said to have dominated talks.
There is an understanding between both parties that savings of €3.6 billion – €1.5 billion from taxes and €2.1 billion – need to be made when the budget is announced later this year.
But there has also been a broader review on the progress on restructuring and deleveraging the banks, reviewing targets in public finances, and looking at the success so far of the jobs initiative and the creation of a fiscal advisory council, RTÉ reports.
This is the third quarterly review to be delivered by the troika since the bailout was agreed last year.
The fourth review of Ireland’s progress is expected in September and is anticipated to be a lot more challenging.
TheJournal.ie will be live tweeting events from the troika press conference on @thejournal_live from 1pm today.
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