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Economy growing but government planning for shocks, says Donohoe

Economy growing but government planning for shocks, says Donohoe

The Government is planning for a hard Brexit and has arrangements in place to deal with the associated economic shocks.

That’s according to the Finance Minister, who’s been briefing reporters on the mid-year tax take and spending.

The latest figures show continued growth in the economy and rising employment.

Minister Paschal Donohoe says that amidst all the uncertainty, the economy is healthy and they’re planning for external shocks.

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"While we do face great uncertainty and difficulty in dealing with all of this, it would clearly be vastly higher if our jobs market had not improved to the extent that it had.

"Number two, one of the reasons why we're increasing capital expenditure for next year at the rate that we are is acknowledging that we're going to have a shift in the external environment for our economy."

The finalised CSO stats for last year show GDP grew 7.2% in 2017.

The economic indicator was up more than 9% in the first three months of 2018 compared to last year.

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