merrion street

The first EU-IMF Post Programme Surveillance/Monitoring review mission took place this week with officials from the Department of Finance, the Department of Public Expenditure & Reform, the Central Bank of Ireland, and the NTMA meeting officials from the IMF, the European Commission and the ECB. Officials from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) also participated in the mission as observers. This review mission has now successfully concluded, with the EU and IMF issuing positive statements on the review.

As part of the annual cycle of economic coordination under the European Semester all 28 EU Members states are subject to close scrutiny by the Commission. Moreover, following exit from the EU-IMF Programme on the 15th of December 2013, Post Programme Surveillance will continue until 75% of the EU-sourced financial assistance (EFSF & EFSM) has been repaid and Post-Programme Monitoring will continue until such time as the outstanding credit falls below the threshold of 200 percent of quota IMF programme funding. Unlike the Programme reviews that took place over the last three years where the focus was on programme implementation and which culminated in the approval of programme funding to Ireland, the focus of these missions is on Ireland’s ability to repay the outstanding loans.

Commenting on the successful conclusion of the first EU-IMF Post-Programme Surveillance/Monitoring mission the Minister for Finance, Mr. Michael Noonan and the Minister for Public Expenditure & Reform, Mr. Brendan Howlin stated:

“Successfully exiting the EU-IMF programme last year was a key milestone on Ireland’s road to recovery. As we made very clear at the time, exiting the programme was not the end in itself and this Government remains fully committed to stabilising the public finances to ensure delivery of the highest quality of public services, growing the economy and most importantly, getting people back to work.

The Medium Term Economic Strategy published in the days following the exit set out our strategy to deliver on these objectives and outlined a number of key challenges that we must overcome. It was clear to our officials throughout the mission and evident from the statements issued by the EU-IMF today that they support our objective to tackle unemployment, address the legacy banking issues, drive lending to the real economy, ensure debt sustainability and continue to take measures to control expenditure pressures.

The conclusion of this review will further reassure investors that Ireland’s economic recovery is strengthening.”