The fiscal impact of the banking crisis: how much did Ireland pay?

A research paper from the ECB has lots of useful information on the scale of the financial assistance provided by governments to their banks from 2008 to 2013.  As can be expected, given the size of our banking collapse, Ireland features quite extensively. 

The summary position for Ireland for the period from 2008 to the end of 2013 is:

• Ireland is 1.8 per cent of Euro area GDP (2013)
• The Irish government provided 12.9 per cent of the total financial assistance given to banks by governments in the Euro area (€65.2 billion out of €504.7 billion)
• The Irish government acquired 6.3 per cent of the net financial assets acquired by governments from banks in the Euro area (€21.1 billion out of €336.5 billion)
• Ireland incurred 26.2 per cent of the total government deficit impacting measures (capital transfers and net financing costs or revenues) to support banks in the Euro area (€44.0 billion out of €168.2 billion)
• Ireland incurred 9.4 per cent of the public debt increase to the end of 2013 resulting from measures to support the financial sector (€48.8 billion out of €514.6 billion)
• The Irish government has incurred 26.2 per cent of the estimated public losses to the end of 2013 from providing support to financial institutions in the Euro area (€44.0 billion out of €168.2 billion)

The full details for all 19 Euro area countries (and the UK) for the six points made above are in the following table which is based on the figures provided in the ECB paper.

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