Quote Originally Posted by life on mars View Post
Wasn't Ireland bailed in the recent recesion , and wasnt a fair bit of that bail out money from the values other member states had put in including England ,Wales and Scotland and didnt the bank of England and the financial institutions centred in London also help ,somone was beholdent, and it showed how weak the structure was ?
England set a precedent for IMF bailouts around these islands in the 70's, and it could and should have been a whole lot worse, luckily North sea oil and gas came on tap in the nick of time rescuing them from a long and protracted economic depression with further recourse to external bailout.

As for Ireland not sure who bailed who out tbh. Brian Lenihan committed to honour all debts in the banking sector, including the full redemption of all it's unsecured bondholders, the bill for this rang in at around 60 billion. Absolutely crazy times, as subsequently the Irish tax payer picked up the tab to bail out financial institutions across the globe who should have taken a hit. Incidentally many of the financiers that benefited were city of London based, the whole clusterfuk of 10 years ago was far from a charitable donation to help a neighbour. More an act of self interest to protect the balance sheet of many of your own banks and financiers.