Finance Minister Brian Lenihan is planning an initial €6bn (£5bn; $8bn) of cost cuts in the toughest budget in the country’s history, the BBC reports.
But the ruling Fianna Fail’s slim majority means the vote to get it passed by parliament could be close.
If the budget is cleared by parliament, it will trigger the first tranche of bail-out funds from the EU and IMF.
Euro collapse ‘possible’ amid deepening divisions over bail-out
The euro may not survive the current sovereign debt crisis sweeping Europe, one of the Treasury’s leading independent forecasters has said, the Telegraph reports.
Under questioning from Treasury Select Committee MPs , Stephen Nickell, a member of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and a former Bank of England rate-setter, said a collapse of the single currency was “a possibility”.
Asked about the sustainability of currency unions, he added: “The general consensus is that sooner or later they fail for one reason or another – but that doesn’t mean to say it always happens.”
Watchdog plans clamp on pension bets
Pension funds will be prevented from investing in risky assets, including stocks, by the Pensions Regulator, the Financial Times reports.
David Norgrove, chairman of the regulator, will say some schemes are taking risks which could leave a bigger hole in the industry funded Pension Protection Fund in a speech later.
Some schemes were so underfunded their only hope of recovery lay in big bets. The regulator was also concerned about standards of governance, particularly for smaller schemes.
“We come across a fair degree of criminality at the smaller end of schemes,” said Norgrove, whose six-year tenure at the regulator, created in 2004, is drawing to an end.
