Ireland knows better than most that the European Commission and the big eurozone countries, Germany and France, can drive jittery sovereign bond markets close to crisis by their failure to make soothing noises at the right time.

Less than a year ago, Irish ten-year bonds shot up past 6% – double the German rate – as investors bet that the eurozone was wary of bailing out Ireland and its banks. Only when the German finance ministry spoke last spring of its support for Ireland did the crisis start to ease. On Friday, Irish ten-year debt paper was trading at 4.75%, over 1.25% lower than the danger zone of nine months ago.

Now it is Greece that needs some clear statements from Germany and France. Last week, Greek benchmark debt continued to soar, touching 6.21% – almost double the German rate of 3.18% – as the markets feared Greece would fail to tap money from the markets. It could not be more similar to the Irish experience of less than a year ago.

Commentators in the Financial Times talked about the "Greek Tragedy" as the country faces a deep recession because of the huge amounts of spending it will need to take out of the economy.

Reassuringly, the Greek drama did not harm Ireland. Ireland was one of the few countries where sovereign interest fell in the last five days: the ten-year benchmark bond fell seven basis points.

Without taking off the political pressure to cut spending, a bit of plain speaking to the markets from Brussels and Frankfurt could help Greece. That may be the forgotten lesson from the Irish crisis of last March.