Ireland’s Resistance to EU Bailout May Rest on Crumbling Banks

Ireland’s sovereignty depends on the nation’s biggest banks as the European Union presses the government to accept a bailout.

While the government says it won’t need to raise money in the bond market until the middle of 2011, Irish lenders are depleting the collateral they need to get the emergency funding from the European Central Bank on which they depend. Corporate clients have pulled deposits from lenders including the country’s biggest, Bank of Ireland Plc.