Rating downgrade less severe than was feared

IRELAND has been stripped of its last ‘A’ rating based on future risks to bondholders, but the one-notch cut was less severe than feared and gave the thumbs up to the State’s bank bill.

Standard & Poor’s, whose rubbishing of a previous “final bill” for Ireland’s banking sector sent the country’s debt crisis into overdrive last year, said the assumptions underlying the latest round of stress tests were robust.

They changed their outlook to stable, meaning no further downgrades in the pipeline.