Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar has defended the government’s programme for recovery in the wake of comments made by the Social Protection Minister.

Joan Burton placed herself at odds with government policy when she told a conference in Dublin yesterday that we have reached the limits of austerity.

She said electorates in advanced societies had a limit beyond which they were not prepared to accept austerity and that we have now reached a tipping point.

But Minister Leo Varadkar says the coalition parties had no choice when they entered government: