As Gerry Adams once said of the IRA – “they haven’t gone away you know”…… well the IMF are still around too – and they have, for the first time, appointed a resident representative in Dublin to oversee its programme of support to Ireland.
The IMF representative, Peter Breuer, is based in the Central Bank’s office on Dame Street
The trio of the EU/ IMF/ECB came to be known as the Troika – and representatives from all 3 will arrive in Dublin on Tuesday for another review of the Irish government’s programme. for recovery .
The review will be the most important yet, focusing on the preparations for the 2012 budget and for the three-year spending plan which the government has said it will publish before the end of this month.
The review will assess whether the government has met its targets for the end of September but, more significantly, also whether it is on track to introduce a 2012 budget in December which will raise at least €3.6 billion between spending cuts and tax increases.
The existing memorandum of agreement with the IMF / EU stated that income tax bands and credits will be lowered (meaning higher income taxes), and that there will be reductions in social welfare expenditure.
If the government wants to go back on these parts of the agreement – it will have to replace it with cuts or taxes that have a similar financial effect.