I thought we were in massive debt?

[vetran]

Tell you what we give them £7B they give us Dublin.

[Mich the Tester]

Tell you what we give them £7B they give us Dublin.

WTF do you want Dublin for? It's got some good pubs, two decent universities and one or two nice buildings, but an awful lot of sink estates too.

I say give them 7 billion on the condition they take that bloody NI off our hands.

[vetran]

That might work

we would save a fortune not subsidising their politicians.

[norrahe]

I say give them 7 billion on the condition they take that bloody NI off our hands.

I don't think they could afford to do that

[d000hg]

UK pledges £7bn to help bail Ireland out of debt crisis - Telegraph

So, let's get this straight. We MUST cut our own public spending becuase of a record breaking deficit. UK citizens must suffer the pain.

But hey, the Irish, who have been having a whale of a time speculating on property are worthy of £7bn of money we don't have?

You couldn't make this tulip up.

This is a topic for grownups to discuss, it's not like when your mate ate his sweeties too fast and wanted some of yours.

[AtW]

It makes sense to do it - should Ireland fall then it would affect interest payments paid by Govt and BoE would have to print more money. Considering amount of "QE" already done and in pipeline this £7 bln is peanuts.

At least Ireland and Greece actually CUT public sector proper - real cuts in salaries.

[Troll]

It makes sense to do it - should Ireland fall then it would affect interest payments paid by Govt and BoE would have to print more money.

Please explain the logic behind that statement

[CheeseSlice]

Tell you what we give them £7B they give us Dublin.

We should also get in on their 'Free Cheese' thing.

Mmmmm.. cheese

[AtW]

Please explain the logic behind that statement

"Cost of National Debt: The cost of National debt is the interest the government has to pay on the bonds and gilts it sells. In the first six months of 2010, the debt interest payments were £21.6bn, suggesting an annual cost of around £43bn (3% of GDP)"

Source: UK National Debt — Economics Blog

So £7 bln is around 2 months worth of UKs interest debt payments. If Ireland falls and its bond holders register losses then it would reduce demand for Govt debt apart from safe heavens (UK isn't one of them - USA might still qualify), so you'd sell less gilts at higher interest rate and also will have to print money to buy unsold gilts from Govt.

Now what EU should do is tell Ireland in certain terms to stop being a legit offshore and increase tax rates for things like corp tax (12% I think) - something like 15-18% would be closer to fair deal and UK should reduce their own to the same level that should be common across all Europe (plus minuse few percentage points).

[alreadypacked]

WTF do you want Dublin for? It's got some good pubs, two decent universities and one or two nice buildings, but an awful lot of sink estates too.

I say give them 7 billion on the condition they take that bloody NI off our hands.

twenthy five