Gilmore rules out debt restructuring

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has pledged Ireland will not restructure its debts.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has pledged Ireland will not restructure its debts.

He made the comments at a conference in Oslo today. The Government is "confident" it will be able to reduce
its deficit under the current economic programme, he said.

In an Irish Times article last week, economist Prof Morgan Kelly said the country was on track to owe a quarter of a trillion euro by 2014, and said a prolonged and chaotic national bankruptcy was becoming "inevitable". He has advocated abandoning the bailout offered by the European Union and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

"National survival requires that Ireland walk away from the bailout. This in turn requires the Government to do two things: disengage from the banks, and bring its budget into balance immediately," he said.

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However, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has rejected Prof Kelly's suggestion, describing it as a "lethal injection" to the Irish economy.

Yesterday, the IMF warned that debt crisis could still spread to core euro zone countries and the emerging economies of eastern Europe.

Additional reporting: Bloomberg