Ireland is now one of the PIIGS of Europe. Along with Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, Ireland is in danger of defaulting on its borrowings, we are told.

Together, these embattled countries have been dubbed the PIIGS of Europe. Their economic woes have presented an enormous challenge to the Eurozone up to last week when the European Union announced a massive confidence-building move to provide emergency funding to boost the EU.

In terms of foreign exchange, the euro remains unloved in the markets which has precipitated an all time low against, for instance, the Aussie dollar.

But for those of us unfamiliar with the intricacies of international economics, the endless dialogue about bailouts and bonds and billions can bamboozle.

At the heart of it, however, is what most of us with a connection to Ireland are wondering what this means for Ireland.

At the beginning of the month we witnessed the almost ludicrous scenario where Ireland – struggling to pay teachers and nurses and police – had to stump up €1.3m to help Greece as part of a Eurozone relief package.

Ireland’s Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan described the funding as “money well spent” arguing that the decision “will help safeguard the stability of the euro area as a whole and this stability will benefit all eurozone member states”.

Mr Lenihan knows better than anyone that Ireland too may have to drink from the well of European goodwill should economic conditions continue to decline.

Many believe that Ireland’s day of economic reckoning is not far away.

Respected economist David McWilliams believes that the bailout of Greece has little to do with solidarity with the hapless Greeks but “a bailout for the banks that lent money to Greece”.

“What has been dressed up as a sovereign bailout with an appeal to our sense of European solidarity is nothing more that a direct transfer of money from you [the Irish taxpayer] to the foreign creditors of French and German banks.”

McWilliams believes that Ireland’s bailout of the banks, yet to be fully realised, puts the country in a perilous position.

“We speak English. We have Google, Intel, Microsoft and Facebook’s headquarters here and we spin a better yarn. But we’re actually in exactly the same position – if not worse – than Greece,” he remarked recently.

Commentator Fintan O’Toole, writing in The Irish Times, recently claimed that Irish people were now living in a state of “feudal servitude”.

He summed up the financial mess thus: “There are 1.9 million people at work in the Irish economy. Their average earnings last year were €36,300. After tax, that’s €29,500 each.

From this, each one will stump up an average of €4,600 just to pay the interest on the money the State is borrowing to fund the bank bailout.”

O’Toole, who has two sons in their 20s, conceded: “I am trying to find one compelling reason for them to stay here.”

Morgan Kelly, a professor of economics at UCD who was one of the first to predict Ireland’s economic collapse, is even more pessimistic.

“In effect,” he wrote recently, “Ireland is at the start of an enormous, unplanned social experiment on how rising unemployment affects crime, domestic violence, drug abuse, suicide and a litany of other social pathologies.

“Mass mortgage defaults caused by unemployment and falling house prices are the next act of the Irish economic tragedy.

“As well as bankrupting our worthless banks all over again, the human cost of tens of thousands of families losing their homes will be enormous,” he says.

Even if these three commentators are half right, the prospect of Ireland shedding its economic woes looks tragically remote.

editor@irishecho.com.au