To date 3 deflationary budgets, which have taken €14.5 billion out of the economy, have been approved. The Government says it needs to cut a further €15 billion over the next four years (for a total of €29.5bn which is equivalent to 19% of the country’s GDP), to meet the target of 3% of GDP by 2014. Meanwhile, Ireland is in its third year of recession and unemployment has more than tripled from 4.3% (end of 2006) to 13.9% today.