Now they, and the local banks (and government), are licking their wounds in terms of heavy actual and prospective loan-loss charges. Financial integration generally – not just the euro – fuelled the boom to dizzying heights from which the fall has been painful.
By now, the Irish banks, faced with a “sudden stop”, have repaid vast borrowings from the globalised financial system largely using central bank funds to do so – though, also using some of the Troika funds via the recapitalisation of the banks at mid-2012. Financial integration intermediated through official channels has, for the moment, replaced international market integration.