From defiance to capitulation: six days that humbled Ireland

[Joanne98]

It began with denials and ended with IMF talks to agree a bailout of the stricken Irish economy, amid revelations of a run on one of the country's biggest banks – and a deal on the debt crisis is still some days away

Bailout? Not a chance. Ireland's government could hardly have been clearer. As rumours swept across Europe last weekend of secret negotiations on a multibillion-euro rescue package, minister after minister went on air with vitriolic rebuttals.

"Fiction," snapped minister of justice Dermot Ahern in a radio interview last Sunday. Tourism minister Mary Hanafin, just back from meeting alarmed Irish expats in the US, declared there was "no question of it", while enterprise minister Batt O'Keeffe was "absolutely unaware of any moves from Europe", adding that Ireland would not give up an inch of its hard-won sovereignty.

But the thin green line of Irish financial resistance did not last long. Targeted by bond vigilantes, crippled by weakening finances at Allied Irish Banks and undermined in off-the-record briefings by sceptical European neighbours, Ireland's fragile economic credibility – undone by a soaring property boom that collapsed when the international credit markets froze – unravelled over six of the most tumultuous days in the nation's recent history.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/nov/21/six-days-that-humbled-ireland

[westerebus]

1. Several white commercial vans have gone a missing.

As have a few retirees and first cousins' sons. There's a bit of plumbing that needs attending to.