Ireland has met or “overachieved” in implementing the terms of the EU-IMF bailout, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has said in a letter to the two institutions.
In his quarterly letter to the EU-IMF on meeting the terms of the bailout, Mr Noonan said the Government was "on track to observe, and indeed overachieve" the target for reducing the budget deficit in 2011.
The letter, of Thursday this week, was published yesterday by the Department of Finance.
Although full and final details of the recapitalisation of the banks were not available from the department last night, a spokesman said all end-July commitments in this regard had been met.
Yesterday, the Central Bank of Ireland published a new report on the economy and figures on the health of the banking system.
Among other things, it largely corroborated Mr Noonan's views on the public finances, saying that targets in mid-year were "broadly in line with expectations".
The bank did, however, urge the Government to set out as early as possible the shape of the 2012 budget so that uncertainty for households and businesses would be reduced.
The Central Bank's forecasts for the economy, published yesterday in its quarterly bulletin, are marginally more downbeat than three months ago.
It now expects the economy – as measured by gross national product – to shrink slightly this year.
As measured by the wider indicator of gross domestic product, which includes multinational companies' profits, the economy is expected to grow at 0.8 per cent this year, fractionally lower than forecast three months ago.
This growth will not, however, be sufficient to halt the decline in the numbers at work. According to the Central Bank, 31,000 fewer people will be employed in 2011 than in 2010. In 2007, there were 300,000 more people at work than there are now.
The downward trend should be halted next year, the bank said. A net 4,000 increase in the number of jobs in the economy is expected in 2012. This reflects the bank's expectation of stronger economic growth.
Separate figures on the amount of cash held on deposit in the Irish banking system and its loans were also published yesterday by the Central Bank.
They show that the decline in deposits in June was the smallest amount in almost a year.
From September 2010 to January 2011, the banking system suffered a very large loss of deposits, overwhelmingly as a result of foreigners withdrawing money.
Outflows of deposits from banks guaranteed by the State continued in June, but the decline was well below the average since confidence in the banking system began to be eroded last September.
A fall of €5.5 billion last month was considerably below the €13.5 billion average in the September-May period.
If the trend in the latest figures continues, the deposit base of the Irish banking system may be approaching stabilisation.
The same figures also suggest that the decline in lending to households and businesses is bottoming out.
June marked the second consecutive month when the banks increased their lending to companies.
Although lending to households in recent months has continued to fall, the rate of contraction has been decelerating.
