As a group of international experts arrived in Dublin on Thursday, the Irish government finally seemed to admit that it was unable to cope with its massive banking crisis alone. Whether the talks result in a bailout from the EU-IMF rescue fund remains to be seen. But the Irish insist they are holding onto their low corporate tax.
Is a bailout by any other name still a bailout? The Irish government may have finally admitted that it requires help with its ailing banking sector but ministers are continuing to deny that the arrival of international financial experts to Dublin this week heralded any loss of national sovereignty. The mood in the country is now one of disbelief that Ireland, once the famed Celtic Tiger economic powerhouse, could have sunk so low, so quickly. And that it could be on the cusp of handing over some control of its governance to outsiders.
On Friday, members of the troika from the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank, who held an initial round of talks on Thursday, began pouring over the books to get a sense of just what kind of assistance Ireland requires. The question now seems to be if a contingency fund for its banking sector will suffice or if the Irish state will have to apply for support from the European Financial Stability Facility, the fund financed by the EU and the IMF, which was created in response to the Greek debt crisis. Also at stake is whether Ireland will have to cede its low corporate tax rate, something that has long irked its European partners, before it can obtain any aid.
After a week of denials by government figures, by Thursday night Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan was admitting that the Irish government was no longer in a position to deal with the massive debts incurred by the country’s financial institutions that seemed to be sucking the rest of Ireland’s finances into a black hole. Continue reading →