European officials geared up to travel to Ireland and lift the lid on just how bad the country's banking woes are, as EU finance ministers struggled Wednesday to come up with a rescue plan that will keep bond market turmoil from spreading to Portugal and Spain.
Irish and European Union officials had vowed the day before to stabilize the banks at the center of the country's financial crisis to restore confidence in the wider 16-nation eurozone, but fell short of agreeing on a bailout. On Wednesday, Britain -- which has made savage austerity cuts to avoid a debt crisis of its own -- also offered help to protect Ireland's heavily exposed banks.'
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Such a shame another country needing help. Hopefully 2011 will bring more stability and hope to each country around the world. If Ireland collapses financially, it will be a catastrophe for its creditors, mostly banks based in the bigger countries of the European Union. It will also impact badly on the other weak EU economies – Greece, Portugal, perhaps Spain, perhaps Italy. If one or more of them collapses, that will, like falling dominoes, hit the bigger economies.
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