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Investors fear Ireland may still default on its debt

Soaring cost of insuring the country against inability to repay shows markets are still nervous about our mid-term future.

INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS ARE still hedging their bets that Ireland will default on its debt. The business website Bloomberg.com quotes the head of European government debt at a major investment group in Holland as saying that:

The market seems to be pricing in the possibility that Ireland may have to restructure its debt. It’s something that cannot be excluded.

That was Michiel De Bruin at F&C Netherlands. Bloomberg says that the cost of insuring Irish debt against non-payment for the next five years has soared to a record 628 basis points in the last six months. According to credit information specialists CMA in London, “that implies a more than 40 per cent chance that the nation won’t repay investors on time”.

To read Bloomberg’s rather scary analysis, click here >