There has been massive downsizing of this category of banks.4 (There has also been downsizing of the other banks active in Ireland, but these are less central to the fiscal-banking nexus that has been at the heart of the Irish crisis, so I will not dwell on that here). A few points are worth noting from these figures.
First, the relative importance of bonds and deposits: deposits very much larger at all time periods; bonds5 disproportionately invested by foreign concerns. Second, the changing relative importance of foreign business on both the asset and liability side – growing up to the beginning of 2009, shrinking thereafter.