The eurozone's woes go far deeper than Ireland

It seems we're not much closer to a concrete resolution of Ireland's debt problems. No aid has been accepted by the country as yet. However, some sort of bail-out does look inevitable. A crack squad of fixers from Europe and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are heading to Ireland for 'talks'. The desired fudge – for Ireland – is a deal that can be painted as a bail-out for the banks, rather than for the state. Obviously, the reason the state is in this mess, is because the government rather foolhardily committed to stand behind the banks back in 2008. But this is politics. The Irish government needs to consider how losing control over its economic policies would play with the voters. What makes this situation difficult is that they're not the only ones who need to fret about what the voters think.