DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's government told voters on Wednesday that it could halve unemployment two years ahead of schedule by 2018 if re-elected, replacing all the jobs lost after the nation had to find money to sort out a financial crisis.
A year ago Prime Minister Enda Kenny set 2020 as a target to return to full employment, defined as a jobless rate of 5 to 6 percent. But firms have been adding jobs at a faster rate than anticipated as economic growth outstrips the rest of Europe.
The government expects unemployment to fall below 10 percent this year after dropping to 10.6 percent at the end of 2014 and said on Wednesday it will publish a new medium-term economic strategy in the spring, a year out from elections, to outline its plans.
"The success of our strategy to date has meant we can bring forward our goal of replacing all the jobs lost in the recent crisis to 2018," Kenny told a news conference with Deputy Prime Minister Joan Burton of the junior coalition Labour party.
Ireland took an 85 billion euro (65.68 billion pounds) bailout from the International Monetary Fund and European Union in 2010 after a property crash fuelled twin fiscal and banking crises.
The governing parties have pinned their hopes of re-election on voters starting to feel the benefits of an economy that likely grew by around 5 percent last year, but efforts so far have been undermined by protests as frustration over an uneven recovery spilled onto the streets.
Support for the coalition showed tentative signs of recovery on Wednesday: the first opinion poll of 2015 gave Kenny's Fine Gael party most support and Labour reversed some of its big losses.
The government said the strategy, a precursor to October's budget when it plans to cut income tax again, will include a new capital investment plan, show how it will address the economic divide between urban and rural Ireland and improve childcare support, all potential election issues.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
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