A report on economic competitiveness has placed Ireland bottom of a list of 139 countries worldwide for the state of its banks.
The Global Competitiveness Report is compiled by the World Economic Forum after a survey of businesses in each country, and covers a range of factors affecting each country's business climate.
Overall, Ireland has fallen four places to 29th in the 2010-11 report, dragged down by low rankings in the financial market category.
In the 'soundness of banks' rankings, Ireland is last, behind even Iceland and Greece, while Ireland ranks only 117th for ease of access to loans. Access to loans was rated as the biggest problem for doing business in the Irish survey.
Ireland scores well for the quality of its institutions, and for the efficiency of its goods and labour markets. It also comes 21st in the technology category.
Switzerland retained its place at the top of the list, having knocked the United States off the top spot last year. The US fell further, from second to fourth, in this year's list. Sweden was second and Singapore third.
The report said there had been a weakening of US public and private institutions, as well as 'lingering worries' about the state o its financial markets.
Top 10 (last year's rankings in brackets)
1 Switzerland (1)
2 Sweden (4)
3 Singapore (3)
4 United States (2)
5 Germany (7)
6 Japan (8)
7 Finland (6)
8 Netherlands (10)
9 Denmark (5)
10 Canada (9)
