Irish finance minister confident provisions for COVID-19 are enough

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland is confident that it has enough resources in its 2021 budget to deal with the current COVID-19 surge, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said on Tuesday, saying the fact that Britain and the European Union had secured a trade deal would free up some funds.

"The scale of the funds will be sufficient," Donohoe told a press briefing.

Speaking at the same briefing, Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath said the budget provided for exceptional spending of around 12 billion euros "which gives us the firepower to support the economy over the course of 2021".

(Reporting by Conor Humphries; Editing by Kevin Liffey)