Ireland: AIB crisis shows UK must help bailout to save its own banks | Business | The Guardian

Ireland: AIB crisis shows UK must help bailout to save its own banks | Business | The Guardian: "€10bn (£8.5bn) has been withdrawn from Bank of Ireland and €600m from Irish Life in recent months. Bank analysts say the outflow of deposits reflects anxiety that even an Irish government guarantee is not enough to reassure customers and explains why the government is being pushed into accepting a bailout to restore confidence in the system.
With £140bn of loans linking the former Celtic Tiger's banks to their still-recovering British counterparts, the lack of confidence in Ireland's system is why some analysts believe the British chancellor, George Osborne, is ready to use taxpayers' money to bail out Ireland.
The Irish crisis has flared up despite action taken by Dublin since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 to bolster the banking system. After controversially guaranteeing savings, the government took stakes in the major players: full control of Anglo Irish Bank, 36% of Bank of Ireland and soon to be 90% of AIB. It also created a so-called bad bank, the National Asset Management Agency, to cushion the losses of the banks' disastrous lending spree to property developers."