Also Ireland vs. Iceland. Both got massively screwed over not by the government, but by mismanaged banks. Ireland's stuck its own taxpayers with the debts of its profligate banks, and done the "austerity" thing to pay for it. Iceland let the banks go broke, and let the banks' overseas debtors take the hit. And even though the Icelandic banks screwed up worse than anybody's, Iceland's doing as well as Ireland in total output (better than the Baltics), and a lot better in unemployment, which is kinda relevant if you're an Icelander.
Ireland and Greece are COMPLETELY different. Greece's government budget is wildly fraudulent. Ireland's government was responsible, but decided to encumber taxpayers with private banking losses. Irish voters, like those in Iceland, may yet reject this deal.
I know I would. The international banking cabal has captured the "democratic" processes across most of the West and is using those governments to plunder their people.
"Ireland's government was responsible...." absolutely untrue.
"As a small, open economy, Ireland was always going to be vulnerable to global swings," says Ray Kinsella, an economist at University College Dublin. "But this is predominantly a self-inflicted crisis."
There was an expensive, taxpayer-funded study done (can't seem to find it atm, but if you Google around you may find it) which basically concurs with the above statement - our crisis was largely our own making. The international credit crisis may have accelerated it slightly, but it would have happened eventually anyway.
I attended a great presentation by a guy called Ed Walshe, who is the former president of one of Ireland's biggest colleges (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_M_Walsh) where he laid out in black and white all the idiotic stuff the government got up too when times were good. Things like massively increasing the numbers of civil servants - not in front line services like doctors, nurses and teachers; but useless bureaucrats in offices in Dublin, massively increased civil servant pay - way ahead of inflation (this effectively bought them popularity for the next election), cutting income taxes across the board, 'throwing gasoline on the fire' by giving extra tax breaks to property developers (section 23 and section 50 tax breaks) when things were extremely overheated and the brakes should have been applied etc. etc. I can dig up a copy of the presentation on my hard drive if you are especially interested.
Also adding to the problem was non-existent regulation of the banks and construction industry in general. The head of the construction federation was a guy who was former Fianna Fail (the main party in government). The head of the banking lobby was a former member of a party that was in power with Fianna Fail. Basically at the highest levels in Ireland the whole scene operated like a gigantic old boys' network that would put things to shame in most other parts of the world.
Greece was profligate, openly cooking the books since at least 2002 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Financial_Audit,_2004) whereas Ireland was doing the noble thing by imposing austere measures on itself.
Yet both needed bailouts by the EU recently, and both will probably wind up defaulting.