I'll Give You a Few Figures, John

Irish banks play the silly game, which they borrow short and lend long. This means that we're on floating rates - highly sensitive to changes in short time. So imagine a situation where instates rise very rapidly. For many people hoping to buy a house, those sort of interust rates would cause house prices to fall dramatically. Yet the bad thing is, for those who's just bought houses, it means theyre in negative equity.