Surely it is farewell to the confidence fairy after this…

…latest piece of news?

From the Medium-Term Fiscal Statement:

The document reaffirms the Government’s judgment that €3.5 billion needs to be extracted from the economy in next month’s Budget, with further adjustments of €3.1 billion and €2 billion required in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
This will allow the State to meet the deficit targets contained within the terms of the EU/IMF bailout.

Well, we’ll see. It’s not exactly boundless optimism on the growth front…

GDP growth is expected to rise to 2.5 per cent in 2014 and to 2.9 per cent in 2015. For this year, the Government has pencilled in growth of 0.9 per cent, which is slightly ahead of its previous forecast, helped by positive economic data for the third quarter. 

But given that the government had to scale back its projections previously one cannot feel entirely convinced of those figures. And even less so when one reads Michael Taft’s thoughts on this matter here which points out that the EU doesn’t buy into the government’s growth rates.

And how very unreassuring the latest news that says the Budget will bring no ‘additional’ austerity over and above the €3.5bn already pegged to be removed from circulation. If that’s meant to make us feel better it’s not working:

The department said that while a modest increase in employment was likely over the next two years, the impact on the unemployment figures would be limited. It expressed concern that the composition of unemployment had changed considerably since 2006, with long-term unemployment accounting for 61 per cent of those out of work now, more than double the 2006 figure.

It also said the budget, in three weeks, would include measures for social expenditure cuts and reductions in the public pay and pensions bill.

But this, this is remarkable:

It expects the jobs market to remain problematic, with no uptick anticipated until the second half of next year.
The jobless rate will remain relatively high even until the middle of the decade, according to the analysis.
The unemployment rate is forecast to be more or less unchanged at 14.5 per cent in 2013, before falling to 13.9 per cent in 2014 and 13 per cent in 2015.

13 per cent. Relatively high? In 1986 unemployment peaked at 17 per cent. In 2000 it stood at 4 per cent. 6 to 8 or 9 per cent would strike me as relatively high. 13 per cent… what can one say?