Austerity-hit Ireland is poster boy for euro bailout success

DUBLIN, Nov 27 (AFP): Hammered by austerity measures a year after a massive EU-IMF bailout, Ireland is now being hailed as a eurozone poster boy for the way it is coming to terms with the consequences of its boom to bust. As the government implements cuts and tax hikes under its bailout programme, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has praised Ireland as a "superb example" of how a country can work its way out of a debt crisis. In November last year, Ireland was forced to seek an 85- billion-euro ($119 billion) EU-IMF rescue package to deal with massive debt and deficit problems. The country was still reeling by the time of February's general election when Enda Kenny swept to power at the head of a coalition of his centre-right Fine Gael with the Labour party. Kenny inherited the straitjacket of a multi-year fiscal austerity plan negotiated with the previous government of Brian Cowen's centre-right Fianna Fail and the Greens. Despondency would have been an easy option, Kenny admitted, but insisted "that is not my way" as he set about dealing with a national debt that had ballooned, an enormous budget deficit, rocketing unemployment and-as he put it-a banking sector "in disarray." Living standards plummeted and property and banking meltdowns wiped out billions of euros in personal wealth after Ireland's so-called Celtic Tiger economy crashed. Yet the protests that have hit other struggling eurozone countries have been largely absent here. The lack of demonstrations despite the squeeze is part of Ireland's recent political culture, according to academic Michael Marsh, of Dublin's Trinity College. "The puzzle is why are people so quiescent? I suppose people just have the feeling that we are in a mess. I think people recognise we are in a mess," he said. "What's a protest going to do? It's going to move the deckchairs around."