How far is Ireland Inc going to fall?

WHEN the governor of the Central Bank starts sentences with the words: “I will say something reckless now...” you begin to wonder just how much further this country has yet to fall financially.

The chilling preamble, interspersed with bouts of inappropriate sniggering, was hardly the most reassuring of attempts to make it look as if someone was actually in charge of Ireland Inc.

But the rather rattled-sounding Patrick Honohan was clearly concerned about the sheer scale of the shockwaves emanating from the latest economic stun grenade to be lobbed into civil society by professor of economics at UCD Morgan Kelly, when he predicted debt levels would hit €250 billion by 2014 and thus officially bankrupt the nation unless we quit the EU/IMF deal now.