The governor of the Central Bank, Mr Maurice O'Connell, has dismissed predictions of 1 per cent growth next year as being overly negative, saying that his own view was "far more optimistic".
Mr O'Connell said that growth levels of 5 per cent were still achievable for the Irish economy; the only question was when they would be reached again.
"In the long term, we have the capacity to grow at 5 per cent," he added.
At a Scottish Provident seminar in Dublin, Mr O'Connell declined to expand on the subject in advance of the Central Bank's final quarterly bulletin for this year, due to be presented in mid-December. He considered recovery in the first half of 2002 to be unlikely.
KBC chief economist Mr Eoin Fahy predicted the US economy would have turned around by next summer if not next spring, due to the effect of interest rate cuts.
"The economy quite simply always recovers. That's what's called an economic cycle," he said.
