"Disappointing" GDP figures released last week will not affect Ireland's credit rating in the short-term but measures in the budget and the final Anglo Irish bill will be key to determine whether the country retains its rating, according to Chris Pryce, the influential director at Fitch Ratings.

Pryce's comments starkly illustrate the high stakes facing Ireland in its fight to avoid tapping the eurozone's bailout fund, now headed by Klaus Regling, who co-authored the report into the causes of the banking crash here.

The news comes as the markets have pushed the cost of insuring Irish bonds against a possible default above that of war-torn Iraq.

The costs of insuring Irish sovereign bonds is now the sixth dearest in the world, and are also more costly than insuring those of Portugal and Iceland.

Pryce, who helps decide the creditworthiness of Ireland and Greek, told the Sunday Tribune it was impossible to say whether we will retain the AA- rating "over the next month, or two, or three" but "in the very short-term" it is secure.

"One would hope [the Anglo bill] would be a pretty accurate estimate of the cost of Anglo to the government and the taxpayer and one would also hope that that would reduce uncertainty in the markets and possibly lead to a somewhat better position for Ireland. That remains to be seen," he said.

The markets continued to turn the screw on Irish bonds as the government fights against being forced into the European Financial Stability Facility, now headed by Regling.

In a major piece of new research, UniCredit calculated the markets were saying there was a 42% probability the Irish government would be forced into an unprecedented default on its sovereign bond debts and negotiate a 30% haircut with its bond holders on its repayments.

"For Greece, the markets are saying there's a 100% probability it will be forced to seek a 30% haircut," said UniCredit's Luca Cazzulani in Milan.

Cazulani predicts Ireland will face an ongoing market crisis "because it will take quite a while to fix up Irish public finances".

Ben May, the European economist at Capital Economics in London, said Greece was probably facing a 75% chance of being forced into some sort of default but any renegotiation would not happen for a number of years.

"Ireland has a chance of getting its public finances under control but one of the big uncertainties for markets is how much the banking bill will cost," May said. He warned that markets could still be sceptical even after the announcement of the Anglo bill.

But other analysts said the government has plenty of cash to face down the markets and there was no need at all to seek the costly 5% money available in the bailout fund.

Ciarán O'Hagan at Societe Generale in Paris, which helps sell Irish bonds for the government, said the debt markets were generating "noise" in reacting to last week's weak GDP numbers.