Report calls for 17,300 job cuts

Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan faces a huge defecit

The Irish government has published a report recommending 17,300 public service job cuts and a 5% reduction in social welfare payments.

A group chaired by a University College Dublin economist - dubbed An Bord Snip Nua - put forward recommendations aimed at achieving 5.3bn euros in savings.

It said the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs should be closed and its functions redistributed.

The current 400m euro a week government borrowing was unsustainable, it said.

The Republic of Ireland's government deficit has ballooned as a result of the banking crisis and the recession.

Economist Colm McCarthy, who chaired the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes, told RTE they needed to tackle the big items of spending - health, education and social welfare.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said the government recognised "the choices facing us are not simple or pain-free".

"Following them through requires a collective social effort and not one motivated by protecting one's patch or pursuing one's special interest to the exclusion of all else," he said.

"That is why I would ask people to read the report carefully and critically, and avoid knee-jerk and defensive reactions to each and every suggestion raised by the Special Group.

"All of us, including those of us in public administration, will have to accept that the old ways of doing things need to be looked at afresh, so that we can deliver excellent public services with the dramatically lower level of resources now available."

The Republic of Ireland's largest public service union, Impact, has already threatened industrial action if the government attempted to impose public service pay cuts, pension reductions or compulsory redundancies.