Irish parliament approves E.U.-IMF bailout
Despite bluster from opposition parties, Irish lawmakers voted Wednesday to back the $90 billion international rescue for Ireland, an emergency measure designed to keep Europe's debt crisis from getting worse.</br></br>Opposition leaders had complained about the high interest rates that other European Union partners were demanding from Ireland to help the country cope with its massive bank bailout.</br></br>But Prime Minister Brian Cowen argued that Ireland had no choice but to take loans from the European Union and International Monetary Fund at interest rates averaging 5.8 percent because bond investors were demanding "far, far higher rates."</br></br>A motion endorsing the loan accord passed on an 81-75 vote, clearing the way for the IMF to ratify its $30 billion part of the aid package.</br></br>Ireland faces a 2010 deficit of 32 percent of gross domestic product, a post-war European record that includes exceptional costs of bailing out five Dublin banks. The Irish government plans to plow the first $13.3 billion from the fund straight into the cash reserves of those banks, all of which have been nationalized or partly acquired by the state since 2008.