This round of capital injections into the Irish banks totals $34 bln for 4 banks. None of the banks were international giants. They had modest overseas operations and huge exposure to Irish real estate.
The 19 largest banks in the US, many with sprawling international operations in all corners of the globe required a mere $75 bln in additional capital after the 2009 stress tests… All told, the government will have injected something like $59 bln into the Irish banking system thus far, if my back of the envelope calculations are correct.
That should give you some idea how out of scale the Irish banking bubble became…
