Ireland's cost of borrowing is continuing to rise this afternoon. After briefly dropping below 8% earlier, the interest rate demanded by investors to lend money to Ireland for ten years stood at 8.14% this evening.
The spread between Irish and German government bonds also set new highs for the seventh trading day in a row.
Spanish, Portuguese and Italian spreads are also very high. Investor concerns over the euro zone peripheral countries' beleaguered finances have plagued the markets this week.
NTMA dismisses 'mischievous nonsense'
Bloomberg TV - a US based 24 hour financial news channel - today focused its attention once again on the Irish debt and banking troubles.
Mark Grant, managing director at Southwest Securities, told Bloomberg TV that Ireland is going bankrupt. He said the country is running out of money and has only got about 60 days left of cash.
He said the issue is going to get down to whether the Government is going to pay the senior debt of the Irish banks or whether the EU is going to say enough is enough and let the banks go.
But a spokesman for the National Treasury Management Agency described the claim that the country is running out of money as 'totally incorrect'.
'It is a matter of public record that this country is funded through to the middle of next year. To suggest otherwise is mischievous nonsense,' a statement from the NTMA said.
John Brynjolfsson, chief investment officer at Armored Wolf, also told Bloomberg that the Irish situation is certainly worse than originally thought and is continuing to worsen all the time.
But he says the sovereign debt problem is bigger than just Ireland and says it is an ECB problem. He says the weak point in the euro zone is the euro, which continues to weaken.
