Ireland took another confident step towards participation in the euro with the altogether not surprising confirmation yesterday that the country's official public deficit and debt figures for 1997 are among the best in the EU.

The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, told journalists that Ireland's debt to GDP ratio for 1997 was 67 per cent and that the Government ran a surplus of 0.9 per cent. All the member states are due officially to notify the European Commission next week of the actual out-turn figures for 1997 - until now figures have been based on projections - allowing the Commission and the European Central Bank to recommend which countries should be allowed to join the euro from the start.

The Commission's recommendation is due to be published on March 25th, allowing a month for discussions ahead of the decision by a summit in Brussels on May 1st and 2nd.

Autumn projections by the Commission showed 11 countries able and willing to qualify on the 3 per cent deficit criterion. And, although Maastricht set a debt ceiling of 60 per cent, the treaty also provided for approval for countries whose debt level was reducing sufficiently fast.

Ireland will be alone with Luxembourg in having run a Government surplus for last year, and it has reduced its debt from 95.2 per cent in 1990, a rate of decline unequalled by far in the Union.