merrion street

• GDP forecast to grow by 2.1% in 2014 & by 2.7% in 2015
• Employment forecast to grow by 2.2% in 2014 bringing unemployment to 11.5%
• Macroeconomic figures endorsed by the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council
• General Government Deficit of under 3% targeted by 2015 and elimination by 2018

The Department of Finance today published the

in draft form.

The SPU sets out the official macro-economic and fiscal forecasts for Ireland out to 2018 and is the first update of the Government’s macroeconomic and fiscal projections since Budget 2014 in October of last year.

The Minister for Finance will present the draft SPU to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform this evening and the final document is set for submission to the European Commission before the end of this month.

Speaking on the publication of the Stability Programme Update, Finance Minister Michael Noonan staid:

The Irish economy is performing well and in the Stability Programme Update we are forecasting a strengthening of this recovery. Although GDP was weak last year, it was impacted by sector-specific developments and my Department is now forecasting GDP growth of 2.1% in 2014, strengthening to 3½ per cent by 2018.

Most importantly, this recovery is translating into jobs with employment growing by 3.3 per cent (or 61,000 jobs) in the year to the final quarter of 2013.

Access the update document

.

Read the full press release

.