DUBLIN (AP) — International Monetary Fund officials say they are working with Ireland on a plan to reduce its bank-debt burdens and ease the bailed-out nation's return to normal borrowing on bond markets next year.

An IMF delegation in Dublin says Ireland is fully meeting the terms of its 2010 bailout deal but needs to impose heavier cuts on its unusually generous welfare rates.

As the foreign debt managers spoke Wednesday at a Dublin news conference, about 2,000 anti-austerity protesters marched on Ireland's parliament to demand an end to four straight years of cuts. Many carried placards calling on the public to refuse to pay a new council tax being imposed on every residence.

Ireland's €67.5 billion ($83 billion) EU-IMF credit line is expected to run dry in late 2013.