S&P drops Irish banking system from its top tier

CREDIT rating agency Standard & Poor’s has dropped the Irish banking system from its top-rated group of countries.

As a result the banking system here has been relegated to the same level of risk as banks in Germany, Spain, Italy and Norway.

S&P said it had lowered its risk assessment of the Irish banks under its Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment (BICRA) to Group 2 from Group 1.