Talk that Ireland has avoided contagion from the Greek debt fallout is spectacularly missing the point.

The contagion hit here a year ago because Irish national debt soared from the lowest to among the highest in the eurozone. For that reason alone Ireland's cost of borrowing money for 10 years was stuck last week at an annual interest rate of 4.75%, the second highest in the eurozone.

Apart from speculators, there are no winners from the Greek fallout.

The latest revelation that Goldman Sachs helped Greece raise $1bn off balance sheet in 2002, a transaction which European regulators said they knew nothing about, will hopefully be the start of the clean-up of the Greek public accounts. But the neighbours, despite their disdain for the euro and all its acts, are feeling the chill too: the annual cost to Britain to borrow for 10 years soared last week to over 4.1%, higher than the 4% Spain and Italy pay to borrow money. The sovereign financial markets could drop Britain into a full-blown crisis even before its spring general election.

The penny may drop in London and Brussels that it is not a Club O'Med euro debt problem but a British and European-wide one too. Maybe only then will the EC stop its inept handling and devise a united way of dealing with the debt markets.