The Government is making contingency plans for a Greek default or exit from the euro zone, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

Bloomberg reports that a group of officials, led by second secretary general at the Department of Finance Anne Nolan, is examining the various possible scenarios that may occur if Greece and its creditors do not agree a deal by the end of the month.

Greece - along with the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund – remain deadlocked over a cash-for-reform deal that would unlock billions of euro to the struggling state.

In an emailed response to Bloomberg, the Department of Finance said officials there "together with representatives of other relevant state agencies make contingency plans for a range of issues."

However it did not comment specifically on any of its contingency plans.

Euro area finance ministers are preparing to gather in Luxembourg tomorrow for a meeting billed by officials as a last chance to seal an agreement on as much as €7.2bn in Greek bailout aid.

Germany’s finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has told a parliamentary hearing in Berlin that the government there was making contingency plans in the event of the talks failing to reach a deal by 30 June.

The Irish group has concluded that the direct impact of a Greek euro exit on Ireland would be minimal, the unnamed source said.

However concern over Greece has already had an impact on borrowing costs for the country, with the yield on ten year bonds rising to 1.71% from 0.64% two months ago.

Earlier, France's finance minister warned that a failure of talks between Greece and its creditors would have "extremely serious" consequences for Europe.

A breakdown in talks would be "very serious for Greece but also extremely serious for the European project," Michel Sapin told lawmakers.

The Greek central bank has warned today that the country would be put on a "painful course" towards default and exiting the euro zone if the government and its international creditors failed to reach an agreement on an aid-for-reforms deal.

It also said Greece risked a renewed bout of recession.

It predicted that the current economic slowdown would accelerate in the second quarter of this year.

The Greek economy had started growing again last year after being pounded by years of austerity, but fell back into negative growth in the first quarter of 2015, contracting by 0.2% year-on-year.

The ongoing crisis has prompted an outflow of deposits of about €30 billion from Greek lenders between October and April, the central bank said.

Time is fast running out for Athens and its creditors to reach a deal before a €1.6 billion repayment by Greece to the International Monetary Fund falls due at the end of the month.

But neither side appears willing to give ground, with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras accusing the creditors of trying to "humiliate" his country by demanding more cuts.

Meanwhile Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem has said that the bloc's finance ministers remain opposed to writing off Greek debt, an option which has been considered by the International Monetary Fund.

"Because we are opposed in principle to writing off debt, we are more motivated to stick to the framework agreed upon by the Eurogroup," Dijsselbloem told Dutch parliament's finance committee.

Despite the heated rhetoric, the Greek central bank said that the two sides appeared to have reached a compromise on the main conditions attached to an aid agreement, and that little ground remained to be covered for a deal to stick.

"Failure to reach an agreement would mark the beginning of a painful course that would lead initially to a Greek default and ultimately to the country's exit from the euro area and, most likely, from the European Union," the Bank of Greece said in a monetary policy report.

"Striking an agreement with our partners is a historical imperative that we cannot afford to ignore," it added.

The Greek central bank urged the European Union to spell out promises of debt relief to Greece - a key demand from Athens - in greater detail.

"An agreement would allow Greece to benefit from the favourable global environment and the ECB's quantitative easing programme," the report said.

"Our top priority right now should be to create, as soon as possible, those conditions that would enable the Greek economy to benefit from the favourable global economic environment and the highly accommodative monetary policy at the euro area level and speed up a sustainable return to global capital markets," it added.