Anyone wishing to assert that a significantly better aggregate fiscal adjustment path, in terms of the attained output and employment path, than the one actually negotiated by one Irish Government – and implemented by its successor – in the EU-IMF programme of 2010 thus has their work cut out for them.
I would go further and suggest (but not prove) that, all other things being equal (and I will come in a minute to the matters that might have been better not being equal) the adjustment path was close to the best available to Ireland.