How much of our national debt is due to bank debt?

Joan Burton has just said on Drivetime:

"Half our national debt relates to the bank debt"

I think she is wrong. If she is wrong, then she is basing Labour's economic policies on a mistake. And she is misleading people, unintentionally of course.

It's a very important question and I have not seen it being directly addressed.

Here are my figures and I would be happy to have them corrected.


I am not sure, but did the €7 billion originally invested in AIB and Bank of Ireland preference shares come from government debt? I can't see how it did when tying in the exchequer deficit with the growth in debt. But let's assume that it did, we get:


Still not nearly close to 50%.

I have emailed her to ask her, but if anyone else can throw some light on this, I would appreciate it.

I think this piece answers a lot of the questions here. By 2013 the conclusion is:

• Pre-crisis (2007) National Debt - €37,559 million, 19.5%
• 2008-2013 deficit-related Debt - €94,880 million, 49.2%
• Banking-related Debt - €60,525 million, 31.4%

Less than a third of our debt will be due to the banks. It might even be less as I think €7.5 billion of the bank related debt included will actually have to come from our cash balances rather than additional borrowings.