But waht about the loans to the irish government?

Immaterial.

Loans actually extended to the Irish sovereign amount to less than 20 % of the total outstanding Irish sovereign debt. The remaining 80+ % are loans originally extended to Irish banks, which the Irish sovereign, in a fit of momentary insanity, decided to guarantee. That guarantee should never have happened, and simply telling all the hedge funds and foreign banks to go take a hike is the simplest way to reverse it at this point.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.