The Central Bank of Ireland has urged the Government to push ahead with €3.1 billion of cuts and tax hikes in this month’s budget, warning any scaling back of the planned fiscal adjustment “runs the risk of starting to unwind the positive effects” of the considerable consolidation effort to date. In its latest quarterly bulletin, the Central Bank said there was no point in putting at risk the hard-won gains of the past several years for the sake of “a relatively small short-term fiscal easing”. The bank has lowered its economic growth forecast for 2013, citing a weakness in consumer spending and exports at the beginning of the year.