Residents in Ireland are bracing for another round of sweeping budget cuts after the Irish government announced it was seeking a massive bailout for the country’s banks from the European Union and International Monetary Fund. Bloomberg reports Ireland will request about $130 billion, about 60 percent of the size of its economy. The Irish bailout dwarfs the size of the Greek bailout in May. Earlier today, the Green Party threatened to withdraw from the Irish coalition government unless Prime Minister Brian Cowen agrees to hold an early national election in January. On Saturday, one of Ireland’s biggest trade unions warned that the nation was on the brink of civil unrest if government officials imposed further cuts to the public sector. Residents of Dublin have already taken to the streets to oppose the bank bailout.

Robert Connelly: “This is bad for all Europeans, I would say all ordinary European people, because if they can do this here in Europe and Ireland, they can move to other countries. And the IMF will systematically move to other countries in Europe, impose stringent cuts, impose privatization, impose things that ordinary people do not want across these countries, and people will have no democratic mandate to change that.”