DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland has limited room to ease budget cuts of 2 billion euro (1.6 billion pounds) to be outlined later this year, Finance Minister Michael Noonan said on Tuesday, as political pressure builds following bruising mid-term elections.
Irish deputy prime minister Eamon Gilmore quit as leader of the junior government Labour party on Monday after a hammering at local and European elections and Noonan said that while tax and employment data pointed to a brighter fiscal outlook, he would have limited leeway in October's final austerity budget.
"We'll have a better idea as the summer goes by of what the quantum of adjustment necessary is but these things are governed by the new fiscal rules in Europe so there isn't that much domestic discretion regardless of what the political pressures are to vary from the targets," Noonan told a news conference.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by John Stonestreet)