Fianna Fáil deservedly clobbered in Irish election

The Fianna Fáil party in the Republic of Ireland has been comprehensively ejected from power by the Irish people, having enjoyed a near monopoly on power since the early 1930's - literally a Fianna FAIL! The Irish tax payer has been left with a 85 billion euro bill following the EU/IMF bail out due to Fianna Fáil's decision to underwrite Irish banking debt in 2009. This was a debt built up by reckless residential and particularly commercial property lending whilst Ireland was seen as the "Celtic Tiger". Unfortunately the banks over leveraged themselves, were swamped with bad debts and ultimately had to be nationalised. The party in power failed to control the excesses of the banks and the property industry and eventually the whole rotten state of affairs came close to bankrupting Ireland itself.

To service the massive state liabilities, Ireland's 1.8 million workers has had to suffer draconian cut backs in state spending as well as heavy tax increases. It is difficult to see how the Irish state can fund the interest on the EU/IMF bail out, never mind payback the capital.

It is not difficult to see why the new Irish government (Fianna Gael/Labour Party) will try to restructure these liabilities, but how successful they will be with Germany and France resisting pressure to be seen to be rewarding reckless mistakes of the past, is the $64 million dollar question!

A lesson to us all. When things seem to good to be true, they often are!