Small country offers a gigantic guarantee

THE €400 billion Government guarantee to underwrite Irish banks is disproportionate when we consider the size of our population and our economy in relation to the $700 billion package rejected by the US senate for its banks.

Do we have superiority complex, or do we know something the US doesn’t?

Is this latest Irish move a quasi-nationalisation of the biggest Irish finance houses? Or perhaps, the Government is regretting selling its own two development banks, ACC and ICC, to overseas parent banks whose governments may not underwrite them and it is now trying to make amends for this shortsighted lining of its own coffers?