DUBLIN (Reuters) – Providing free cash for citizens, or the so-called dropping of “helicopter money”, is not a monetary policy tool fit for the coronavirus economic crisis, Irish central bank chief Gabriel Makhlouf said on Wednesday.
“What we need here are measures to support households and firms through the crisis and it needs to be targeted,” Makhlouf, who sits on the ECB’s rate-setting Governing Council, told Irish national broadcaster RTE.
“Helicopter money is not targeted and I don’t think it’s a tool that is fit for this particular crisis,” he said, adding that EU governments must respond with unprecedented, co-ordinate and ambitious action.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin, Editing by Franklin Paul)
