Bailouts, digouts and our last trump card

LET me get this straight. Even though EU rescue fund and IMF officials have landed on our still barely sovereign soil, Ireland does not actually need or want a bailout from them.

This is presumably because the country has not, in fact, been beggared by the unholy trinity of FF, bankers and property developers.

However, if the European lads ask us nicely to help save the euro for them, then maybe we might be willing to accede to letting them give us a few bob, but only as a digout. This sort of carry-on could only get more stage-Irish if Brian Lenihan were to show up at the next EU Council of Ministers meeting with a pig under his arm.