"The longer we wait before addressing these imbalances, the more wrenching the fiscal adjustment ultimately will be."

But if the fiscal adjustment does not come, the dream scenario turns into a nightmare.

"There has been a lot of fiscal adjustment, they are sitting on $35 billion in reserves, the real economy has actually done quite well."

The first fiscal adjustment to this harsh problem was the budget adopted last June.

"We have to continue a program of fiscal adjustment," he said.

Interestingly, we actually have had a fiscal adjustment in the first half of this year equal to a $15 billion tax hike.

The indicators measure the fiscal adjustment required to bring public finances back to sustainable track.

Then, if the general economic conclusions are considered unsatisfactory, a fiscal adjustment can be considered.

However, there are risks to the programme targets and the medium-term fiscal adjustment.

In many ways, Ireland is ahead of many other countries in its fiscal adjustment.