DUBLIN, May 17 (Reuters) – When Ireland’s jobs minister met the heads of 20 U.S. companies on a recent trade mission, he had what he told business leaders last week were some uncomfortable conversations about this month’s referendum on the EU’s plans for stricter budget rules.

From Atlanta to Chicago, Richard Bruton said the companies he hopes will follow the likes of Pfizer and Google in locating in Ireland had one question: what would happen if Ireland voted “No” on May 31.

“We’ll become a Greece,” is the blunt answer offered by AJ Noonan, managing director of Dublin-based Rhonellen Developments and a member of the new Business for Ireland group that has launched a campaign to urge voters to ratify the treaty.

“For the country and therefore ultimately for my business, I think it would be a disaster if we vote no.”

The referendum, taking place as popular resistance grows across Europe to the kind of austerity the Irish government has had to dish out for the past four years, is expected to be the EU’s only popular vote on the new, German-led fiscal treaty.

Just as they did three years ago when a European treaty was last put to the Irish people, employers are not leaving it up to Dublin to lead the campaign, and Business for Ireland has the backing of every major employment group in the country from bankers’ representatives to hoteliers.

They have joined a “Yes” campaign that, so far, is winning majority support from voters.

DUBLIN, May 16 (Reuters) – The damage to the rest of Europe from Greece leaving the euro would be “somewhere between catastrophic and Armageddon”, the chief negotiator for the body representing private sector holders of Greek bonds said on Wednesday.

Charles Dallara, who as head of the International Institute of Finance (IIF) spent months in Athens negotiating the largest ever sovereign debt restructuring, also said he had seen evidence that more people were moving their cash out of Greece.

“There has been a pick up of deposit flight from Greece,” Dallara told reporters, but added he thought this could be stabilised “once you get a new government in place, if that government reaffirms its intention to remain in the euro zone”.

He was speaking on a visit to Ireland, which followed Greece into an international bailout in 2010 but has been far more successful in boosting exports to keep the economy afloat while slashing government spending.

Policymakers have begun to speak openly of the risk that Greece, now in its fifth year of recession, might leave the euro. Dallara said the costs of a Greek exit would be so severe that Europe has to find a palatable way of solving their woes.

“I think that it (a Greek exit) is possible, but I wouldn’t call it inevitable and I wouldn’t even call it likely because the costs for Greece, for Europe and for the global economy are likely each in their own way to be immense,” Dallara said in a speech.

“The pressures on Spain, Portugal, even Italy and conceivably Ireland could be immense and the need for Europe to step up with much greater support for the banking systems would be substantial.”

DUBLIN, May 16 (Reuters) – The mood of uncertainty spreading across Europe could scupper Ireland’s plans to exit its international bailout with a return to bond markets next year, the country’s finance minister said.

As Irish borrowing costs rose sharply for the second day running on fears Greece will quit the euro zone, Michael Noonan said prospects of Ireland starting to tap longer-term market funding again on schedule now looked less certain.

“We hope we’ll get back into the markets at the back end of 2013 but we might not because there is such uncertainty in Europe now,” Noonan said in a speech.

Ireland’s steady progress in meeting its bailout targets, getting a cut to the cost of its official funding and attracting private investment into one of its banks saw its borrowing costs more than halve since last July, with yields on its benchmark 2020 bond hitting an 18-month low of 6.76 percent this month.

But the political turmoil in Greece has pushed those yields up by more than 60 basis points over the past two days to 7.62 percent.

Noonan urged Irish voters to ratify a European treaty on tighter fiscal discipline in a May 31 referendum in order to keep access to Europe’s new permanent bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), open to Dublin.

“We need to have access to the ESM or alternatively the ESM as a backstop to make sure we get back to the markets,” he said.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Georgia and a combination of Scotland, Wales and Ireland declared their interest on Tuesday in hosting the European Championship in 2020, joining Turkey in the race to stage the event for the first time.

The Football Association of Ireland (FAI), which previously considered a bid with their Scottish counterparts to host Euro 2008, said preliminary talks had been held between the three associations and that they would explore a joint bid in more detail over the next 18 months.

With the deadline to express an interest expiring later on Tuesday, Georgia said it would go it alone with a bid, ditching an original plan to co-host with Azerbaijan after Baku withdrew its interest in order to focus on a bid for the 2020 Olympics.

Turkey filed its candidacy last month but it is also bidding for the 2020 Olympics, raising concerns over whether Istanbul can host both events in the space of two months.

The competition will be expanded from 16 to 24 teams after this summer’s championship, placing a greater demand on bidding countries who will need to have up to 10 stadiums to host matches.

Scotland and Wales, who briefly mulled a bid to host in 2016, would not be able to provide the required number but could do so with Ireland which may be able to use the 82,000 capacity Croke Park Gaelic sports ground, as well as the 50,000-seat Aviva Stadium, built on the grounds of the flattened Lansdowne Road.

Georgia would have to build a number of new stadiums and the country’s sports minister detailed its plans on Tuesday after confirming that a formal expression of interest had been sent to UEFA.

DUBLIN, May 15 (Reuters) – Georgia and a combination of Scotland, Wales and Ireland declared their interest on Tuesday in hosting the European Championship in 2020, joining Turkey in the race to stage the event for the first time.

The Football Association of Ireland (FAI), which previously considered a bid with their Scottish counterparts to host Euro 2008, said preliminary talks had been held between the three associations and that they would explore a joint bid in more detail over the next 18 months.

With the deadline to express an interest expiring later on Tuesday, Georgia said it would go it alone with a bid, ditching an original plan to co-host with Azerbaijan after Baku withdrew its interest in order to focus on a bid for the 2020 Olympics.

Turkey filed its candidacy last month but it is also bidding for the 2020 Olympics, raising concerns over whether Istanbul can host both events in the space of two months.

The competition will be expanded from 16 to 24 teams after this summer’s championship, placing a greater demand on bidding countries who will need to have up to 10 stadiums to host matches.

Scotland and Wales, who briefly mulled a bid to host in 2016, would not be able to provide the required number but could do so with Ireland which may be able to use the 82,000 capacity Croke Park Gaelic sports ground, as well as the 50,000-seat Aviva Stadium, built on the grounds of the flattened Lansdowne Road.

Georgia would have to build a number of new stadiums and the country’s sports minister detailed its plans on Tuesday after confirming that a formal expression of interest had been sent to UEFA.

DUBLIN, May 2 (Reuters) – When Giovanni Trapattoni was appointed Ireland soccer manager in 2008, he brought one vital ingredient – experience.

The former Italy coach, who has won 10 league titles in four countries, took over a side reeling from their worst qualification campaign in more than two decades, an unsuccessful attempt to reach Euro 2008 that included a humiliating 5-2 loss to Cyprus.

Ireland had made the costly error of appointing ex-player Steve Staunton as boss two years earlier when the only coaching the former Aston Villa defender had done was a short stint as assistant manager at English lower league side Walsall.

They did not make the same mistake twice and, although they had to rely on an unspecified donation from Irish telecoms billionaire Denis O’Brien to afford the Italian’s wages, Trapattoni has turned around their fortunes.

After coming tantalisingly close to reaching the World Cup finals in 2010, Ireland will play in their first major finals in a decade and their first European Championship in 24 years when they take to the field in Poland in June.

Trapattoni’s dogged side mirrors the man himself, a workaholic who has already signed up to oversee Ireland’s World Cup 2014 campaign. The youthful-looking 73-year-old refuses to give up, let alone take a break.

A tough defender who won two league titles and two European Cups with AC Milan, Trapattoni began his managerial career 37 years ago and was almost immediately successful, winning the first of six Serie A titles at Juventus in his first season in charge in 1977.

DUBLIN, May 2 (Reuters) – Ireland’s chances of Euro 2012 success will hinge on whether they can penetrate, and not simply frustrate, their more illustrious group opponents.

Up against three of the world’s top 12 sides, Giovanni Trapattoni’s resolute and hardworking charges, drawn mainly from the English Premier League’s less-fashionable clubs, will be favourites to prop up Group C.

But the experienced Italian has built a tough team since taking charge three years ago and has lost only once in the last two major championship qualification campaigns, a record bettered only by Germany and two of Ireland’s group rivals, Spain and Italy.

Their other Group C opponents Croatia, who they face in their opening game in Poznan on June 10, played in Dublin in a friendly last August. Like many talented teams before them, they could only draw.

That stalemate marked the second unbeaten game in a run that now stretches to 11 and in which the Irish, appearing in their first major tournament for a decade, have conceded just four times.

Marshalled at the back by 121-times capped goalkeeper Shay Given and Aston Villa team-mate, centre-back Richard Dunne, Ireland are led by captain and record goal scorer Robbie Keane.

The LA Galaxy striker scored seven goals during Ireland’s passage to Ukraine and Poland, bringing his total international haul to 53 and putting him among the top 20 international goal scorers of all time, ahead of the likes of Thierry Henry, Bobby Charlton and David Villa.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland’s government debt will peak a percentage point higher than previously expected next year after Dublin cut its growth forecasts for 2012 on Friday and also trimmed its outlook for next year.

Dublin’s success in cutting the largest budget deficit in Europe and shrinking its banks have distinguished it from fellow euro bailout recipients Greece and Portugal but it desperately needs consistent growth to eat into a debt pile now set to peak at 120.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) next year.

The government said GDP would increase by 0.7 percent this year and not 1.3 percent as previously forecast due to further damaging effects from a slowdown in Ireland’s trading partners that has already dragged the country back into recession.

That was the third downward revision in as many updates over the past 12 months and economists said that the government could ill afford a repeat of this cycle after it trimmed its 2013 GDP forecasts to 2.2 percent from 2.4 percent.

“This continues a pattern whereby growth is always coming next year and never this year and that was the case in 2010, 2011 and 2012. I would say however that like the government, the financial markets also expect a decent economic recovery in 2013,” said Eoin Fahy, economist at Kleinwort Benson Investors.

“But if growth was to turn out like last year or this year, then you are getting into dangerous territory where your debt is on the wrong side of 120 percent of GDP. Even at that though, you should still be able to show a steady downward trajectory.”

The IMF, one of Ireland’s so-called ‘Troika’ of lenders, warned it March that Ireland’s debt would reach 138 percent of GDP by 2016 if growth were to stagnate.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland’s EU/IMF lenders will allow it to spend more proceeds from the sale of state assets on stimulating the economy, suggesting greater willingness within the euro zone to temper relentless austerity with some growth strategies.

Marking the halfway point of its three-year aid programme, Ireland passed the latest review of its bailout on Thursday and reached an agreement to carve out a viable bank from troubled lender permanent TSB as a basis for rebuilding the country’s banking system, which was devastated by a property crash.

However, the European Union and International Monetary Fund said Ireland’s considerable challenges include only modest growth prospects, prompting the lenders to offer some leeway on their previous insistence that Dublin should spend at least two-thirds of cash earned through asset sales on paying off debt.

The move adds to signs that leaders of the European Union are rethinking how best to clean up after a decade-long credit boom that left governments and consumers laden with debt.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has called for a “growth compact” and Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Monti, installed to get the country’s huge debt burden under control, said on Thursday that concentrating on budget savings alone could leave the continent in a prolonged slump.

With the strong performance of Socialist Francois Hollande in the first round of the French presidential election and the Dutch government’s collapse in a row over budget cuts putting growth firmly on the European agenda, Ireland was given some extra if limited room for manoeuvre.

“It is becoming commonplace across Europe now for mainstream political parties to be committed to jobs and growth, but there is a serious lack of practical proposals underpinning the effort,” finance minister Michael Noonan told a news conference.

DUBLIN, April 26 (Reuters) – Irish Life & Permanent has won government backing for a plan to allow its banking arm remain as a standalone business following talks with the country’s EU/IMF bailout lenders this week, a source close to the process said.

Once lauded as the only Irish lender to avoid a state bailout due to its lack of exposure to commercial property developers, IL&P was effectively nationalised last year due to its high proportion of costly “tracker” residential mortgages and inability to access traditional wholesale funding.

The bancassurer, whose profitable life business is set to split from its troubled banking division permanent tsb (PTSB), presented a plan to Ireland’s “troika” of lenders – the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF — seeking to eke out a viable bank by moving its bad assets off balance sheet.

“At this stage, they are backing the plan discussed with the Troika this week which was to maintain PTSB as a standalone business, ringfence the non-core assets and bring the core business back into a position where it can lend into the market,” the source told Reuters.

Ireland’s finance minister Michael Noonan told reporters on Thursday that more progress had been made on the plan than expected and that while talks were still going on, he may have something to announce at a press conference to mark the end of Ireland’s latest bailout review at 1100 GMT.

Noonan also indicated that, as expected, Ireland would pass the review following the conclusion of the 10-day mission.

In what it hopes will be the final phase of a wholesale restructuring of its banking sector, the government has been in talks with the troika to try to shift billions of euros worth of loss-making tracker mortgages from the balance sheets of state-owned banks.