The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, recognised that only last month when, as he said, the Treasury team was working with the International Monetary Fund, G7, the European Union and the Irish Government “to provide the necessary financial resources for Ireland to implement its fiscal reform plans and stabilise its banking system.”The reasons that the chancellor gave for providing the £3.25 billion loan to Ireland to implement those plans were more than economic—he said that there is no doubt that it is in our interests to have a stable Irish economy and banking system.