Yep, what he actually was saying was that it was in the UK’s best interest to loan money outside of what was termed a ‘bailout’ by the EU.
There was no handout and far from juicy, as the Irish people will testify, it was money that required to be repaid, both to the UK and the ECB - with interest.
The reason for the PM’s action was the exposure to the Irish market risk by UK banks, the reason for the ECB forced ‘bailout’ was the exposure of the German banks - many in Ireland were pushing for bondholder write offs, the view was that as gamblers they took the risk - capitalism rules dictated that the Irish taxpayer must pay, and they did through severe austerity measures, many of which remain today.
In Oct 2013 HM treasury reported that Ireland had missed two payments on two days, apparently the payment day in both cases fell on a Sunday.
By that same date, the treasury reported that they had received interest of £67,410,122.43 - on a paid out loan of 3.2bn.
In fairness, the government reduced the rate of interest which reflected the lowering of rates in the market.
There were no milk bowls, just good business on both sides, not so sure I can say the same of the ECB.
Edit: the Telegraph headline can be misleading, Ulster Bank was very heavily involved in the Irish market and notched up massive debt, the UK nationalized RBS and by doing so took on Ulster Bank’s problems being a subsidiary of RBS.
They are still selling off their portfolio, one headline from the Telegraph in Dec 2015 referenced ‘RBS sells off 1.6bn of Irish real estate loans’.
Just like the Celtic Tiger, they are making a comeback:
RBS sells £1.6bn of Irish real estate loansrbs, royal - Telegraph
