Irish Banking Collapse & EU Bailout
"Ireland was AAA rated. EU Commission praised Irish "flexibility"."
COLLAPSE regime flagged July 2010 — 143 days before bailout
EU/IMF €85B program. ECB emergency liquidity. Fiscal austerity 2011-2014.
Ireland's 2010 crisis was caused by a property bubble financed by bank lending, followed by the government's catastrophic blanket bank guarantee in 2008 which socialized private losses onto the sovereign.
Property bubble → bank insolvency → sovereign guarantee of all bank debt → sovereign debt unsustainable → market access loss → EU/IMF bailout.
Irish bank loan-to-deposit ratios exceeded 180% in 2007 — funded by wholesale markets. When wholesale funding froze in 2008, insolvency was mathematically certain.
Austria has Raiffeisen Bank exposure comparable to Irish banking concentration. Banking sector assets ~300% GDP.
View Austria Full Analysis →