Irish finance minister sees less severe economic slowdown

DUBLIN (Reuters) – An expected economic slowdown may not be as severe as feared, Ireland’s finance minister said on Friday after data showed consumer spending continued to grow even as the country’s economy fell into a technical recession.

“Since the start of this year, incoming data both domestically and internationally has suggested that the expected slowdown may not be as severe as previously anticipated,” Michael McGrath said in a statement.

(Writing by Conor Humphries; editing by Jason Neely)