Bank debt deal - Deal would have strings attached

As next month’s day of reckoning over the wretched Anglo Irish and Irish Nationwide €3.1bn promissory note looms ever closer, it is inevitable that the conversation or, more realistically, the debate around the issue will become ever more fraught.

Those who support the Government will counsel patience and rightly point out that negotiations on any matter of such great importance, especially when such mismatched players are involved, always go right down to the wire. They will rightly point out that, though it may be unnerving, no news is good news. Their optimism, however, must be tempered by apprehension, because the consequences of not getting a deal would be so very catastrophic.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has suggested that the Coalition would be in jeopardy if a deal is not reached. As if things were not bad enough, this would raise the prospect of a coalition of parties with even less in common than the incumbents. How that might undermine the stability needed to continue the programme of essential reforms and the confidence needed to entice foreign investors here hardly bears thinking about.