Economics

Ian Guider: Debt and inflation are lurking as the ECB withdraws its safety net

Ireland’s national debt could become a problem again, just as the European Central Bank starts to bring an end to quantitative easing and its financial stimulus packages

The ECB announced two weeks ago that its stimulus plans will end and interest rates will go up

Next month marks the tenth anniversary of arguably the most important speech ever made by the leader of a major central bank. Mario Draghi, now the Italian prime minister, was the then head of the European Central Bank and he had inherited a crisis of unimaginable proportions.

Not only had the world's banking system crumbled, economies across Europe were crashing. Government borrowing costs were increasing dramatically, jeopardising the very future of the euro. And it ...