National Irish Bank is owned by Danske Bank and they applied to have the guarantee extended to them. Same thing with RBS's Irish subsidiary.  

As pressure mounted, the Irish government said it may extend the scheme to foreign banks with retail units in Ireland and that applications would be considered on a case-by-case basis.

This is rich, though:

In an editorial on Thursday, the London-based Financial Times accused Ireland of "economic nationalism".

"The government has behaved anti-competitively and the protection it is offering could even destabilise other banks," it said.

Economic nationalism is okay when the UK uses it for its own race to the bottom, but when the City bankers are threatened by someone else's nationalism it's not okay.


A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith