Mr Ahern welcomed the Irish Congress of Trades Unions' decision and said resuming the talks would underpin confidence in the economy.

But the official noted, "It's clear that fiscal policy will have to be adjusted to underpin confidence in fiscal sustainability."

To them, the FX reserves underpin confidence in the financial system, serving as a security blanket for both the government and financial markets.

Chancellor George Osborne said that, along with the government's spending review announced last week, the ONS data should help underpin confidence in the UK economy.

He said at the conference that $50 billion reserves were "adequate" in normal times but "not enough to underpin confidence in the extremely dynamic situation".

For now though, the 1 trillion-euro-plus money printing scheme to buy chiefly government bonds is underpinning confidence.

However, Mr Bagrie said more consumers were expecting house prices to keep rising, which was underpinning confidence of home owners.

Nevertheless, there's still evidence that liquidity in the asset class remains deep, and is underpinning confidence that bull-market dividend recapitalisation deals can get done.