Follow Us

Follow us on Twitter  Follow us on LinkedIn
 

12 January 2011

Patrick Honohan: Restoring Ireland’s credit by reducing uncertainty


Default: Change to:


Speaking at the Institute of International and European Affairs, the Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland stressed that banks have made substantial underwriting errors, across a wide range of their portfolios, that started to become evident in late 2008 and early 2009.


He said that Ireland faces two main problems in its current financial balance sheet. First, it has too much debt, public and private. Second, there is a market perception of significant tail risk to the debt, especially related to the banks. It is these two problems, which are obviously interlinked, and which have both been growing in the course of the past year, that have led to the market’s reluctance to provide continuing funding at reasonable rates of interest.

By making an alternative line of funding available, the provision of financial support from EU partners and the IMF under the Programme buys time for Ireland to reduce these two problems. It does not itself reduce them. In particular, the financing provided is not structured to reduce the tail risks – that would have been beyond the current scope of the funds from which the financial support has been sourced.
 
 
 



© BIS - Bank for International Settlements


< Next Previous >
Key
 Hover over the blue highlighted text to view the acronym meaning
Hover over these icons for more information



Add new comment