EconomicsIreland: Emergency measures: Ireland intros 4-yr austerity regime

Financial Times Breaking News email (Nov24,2k10):

Ireland unveils four-year austerity

Ireland will cut welfare expenditure, slash the minimum wage, raise income tax and introduce a levy on land and property owners under a drastic austerity plan intended to put the public finances on a stable long-term footing. Under the four-year programme, announced on Wednesday, the government intends to save €15bn ($20bn) between 2011 and 2014 – or about 4 per cent of annual economic output – with €10bn in public spending cuts and €5bn in new taxes and revenues.

What was once a thriving modern economy, in good part built on h+-tech industry and attracting whiz-kid technologists from around the world, has come upon hard t+mz.  It's among the growing list of European countries that imperil what we once called 'the Common Market' and now simply the European economy.  Bes+dz the bailouts of Greece, the Spanish fiasco, the Portugese imbroglio, we now see Ireland trying to avert financial collapse with these austerity measures.  Of course, the coalition govt of Conservs and LibDems in UK coud also be considered part of the pattern of drastic measures to stave off the worst possible effects of the Global Meltdown that rippled out from the American housing -mortgage insolvency which in turn rippled out from the gross mismanagement of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, resulting in the public exposure of the little-known financial overexposure of Wall Street (notably Lehman Strauss and AIG) plus a whole string of bank failures across the USA.  It shook the Canadian economy, but so far the Conserv govt here has kept the country's head above water.

-- EconoMix

Further reading:

Ireland crisis: Ruling coalition partner urges election (Nov22, 2k10) BBC
Irish ministers to sign off IMF/EU package Sunday (Nov22,2k10) Reuters