The IMF, the world's financial supervisory body, has said it would like to see bank rescue plans, like Ireland's, move at a faster pace and with more urgency as this would aid a quicker global recovery.

The body, which also provides emergency funding to countries in financial distress, said it was vital for bank rescues to be completed in order to remove uncertainty from individual economies.

At recent press briefings, senior IMF staff have been asked about resistance in Ireland to the National Asset Management Agency (Nama).

Olivier Blanchard, an economic counsellor with the IMF said: "I think the assessment of the fund is that this is going in the right direction, but not quite fast enough and we surely would like it to go a bit faster.''

The government has circulated a bill setting up Nama, but the full portfolio of loans has not been valued yet and the bill will take several weeks to get through the Oireachtas. The government has also failed to spell out the kind of capital the banks will need.

The IMF suggested in its recent report on Ireland that nationalisation could be one option to deal with banks whose assets have fallen to such an extent that they may now be insolvent.