Ireland's reputation 'rising radically'

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said Ireland’s international reputation has improved radically in recent months due to substantial progress in tackling the recession.

However, he cautioned that the country still has “a very long way to go” before economic sovereignty can be returned to the people.

“Of all the countries in Europe at the moment where there’s economic turmoil Ireland’s perception and reputation has changed radically in the last six months”, Mr Kenny said in Dublin today.

“Bond yields have come down by 5.5 per cent. We’ve negotiated serious interest rate reductions which will be a saving of about a billion a year to our people here,” he said.

Speaking at an event to mark the 25th anniversary of the foundation of homeless charity Focus Ireland, Mr Kenny said the Government would fulfil the requirements it agreed to when it availed of the bailout.

“The Government is intent on complying with the regulations that we entered into in availing of the euro mechanism funding,” he said.

“International business, international commentary, international political perception is that of all the countries, Ireland has made very substantial progress but clearly we have a very long way to go,” he said.

“The job of Government in fulfilling its mandate is to sort out the public finances, be able to get back to the bond markets ourselves and to hand our country back to our people who are in charge of our own economic sovereignty.”