DUBLIN: After weeks of denying it needed a bailout, Ireland Sunday became the second European country to ask for a multibillion euro emergency loan to help stabilize its debt-ridden banks. Other eurozone countries and the European Central Bank had pushed Dublin to accept help after anxiety over Ireland's massive bank-bailout bill threatened to spill over to the currency area's other shaky economies, including Portugal and Spain. The request for help from the EU and the International Monetary Fund is a humiliating turnaround for the Irish government, which only days ago had denied that such a package was being negotiated or was even necessary. It also dashes the hopes of other members of the 16-country currency union that the mere existence of a €750 billion ($1025.55 billion) financial backstop set up in May would suffice to quell concern over several nations' massive debt levels. Ireland's Finance Minister Brian Lenihan refused to give a precise figure on the fund, saying only that it would reach tens of billions of euros. He denied the figure would top 100 billion euros, as some had speculated. “I will be recommending to the government that we should apply for this program,” a somber Lenihan told Irish state broadcaster RTE. The Irish cabinet is expected to sign off on the request later in the day. Experts from the EU, the ECB and the IMF in recent days have been digging through the books of Ireland's biggest banks to find out whether the government would have to pump in more than the ¤50 billion it has already budgeted for the bailout. Ireland is running a deficit of €19 billion ($26 billion), which Lenihan said could not be financed at current market rates. Lenihan said the money would help Ireland pay its bills and provide a contingency fund to back up the banks, which have been hemorrhaging cash since the country's real estate boom crashed in 2008. The interest rate on Ireland's 10-year bonds surged to above 8 percent in recent weeks, after the government again had to revise up the final cost of the bank bailout and economists raised doubts that the Irish economy could grow fast enough to pay off the debt.
