The Irish Government retains the power to unilaterally renege on our bank debt. They lack the political balls to do the right thing- the phrase used by chicken shit Irish politicians and Eurocrats is "the bomb won't go off in Frankfurt, it'll go off in Dublin".

The European Commission, the European Central Bank, Angela Merkel, and amazingly, US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner have all leaned on Ireland to keep this bullshit charade of paying back all this bank debt.

The IMF and the UK Chancellor are the only external parties who've said there's too much austerity in Ireland and paying off this massive debt pile is not right.

Ctrl+F my username, I've posted links elsewhere to back this up.

Brian Lenihan converted the "bank debt" to sovereign debt when he guaranteed it. That never should have happened. To renege on that debt is a default now whatever way you slice it.