Fitch strips Ireland of its A Credit status

The Irish Independent, linked here, reports the downgrade of Ireland by Fitch to its lowest rating BBB+.

The rescue by the IMF and EU is therefore confirmed as the hopeless and pointless gesture it already seemed, I quote from the newspaper report:

Fitch also warned that the budget cuts might choke the Irish economy, rather than reviving it.

"The scale and pace of the deterioration of public finances and continuing contingent fiscal and macro-financial risks emanating from the banking sector mean that Ireland's sovereign credit profile is no longer consistent with a high investment-grade rating," Fitch said.


The austerity measures, together with "accelerated bank deleveraging, could stall the incipient recovery".