A week of protestations from Dublin ended with prime minister Brian Cowen's announcement that Ireland was seeking rescue funds from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
In this special edition of the podcast, our experts examine how Ireland's once booming economy has come to a humiliating bailout.
Jill Treanor is the Guardian's banking expert.
Henry McDonald is the Guardian and Observer's Ireland correspondent.
Larry Elliott is the Guardian's economics editor.
Paul Mason is BBC Newsnight's economics editor and author of an eyewitness account of the financial crisis, Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed.
Plus, we hear from the Guardian's Madrid correspondent Giles Tremlett on whether the crisis in Ireland is in danger of spreading to Portugal, or even Spain.
We also hear from George Magnus, senior economist at Swiss investment bank UBS. He says the latest bailout presents a huge challenge for the eurozone, but that too much is at stake for the future of the currency to be genuinely threatened.
Leave your thoughts below.
