Professor Michael McMahon:

There are also the effects of the credit market and the extent of the housing price falls and what that meant. In these situations, it is very difficult to separate the fiscal and the banking. I always describe Ireland as having a banking crisis that turned into a fiscal crisis. Other countries in Europe started on the fiscal and turned into a banking crisis. However, once we were in it, it was very bad. On both fronts we ended up being very exposed.