The ECB has published estimates of the direct cost to eurozone countries of bolstering the financial sector from 2008 to 2013.<br /><br /> Ireland’s bank bailouts cost the <br />Emerald Isle the equivalent of close to 40 percent of its annual economic output. <br /><br /> This is not good news for the Irish taxpayer as most of the money was spent on bank recapitalisations and toxic assests.<br /><br /> In other words money spent with no chance of any return. <br /><br /> In the case of Ireland it means the country splurged the equivalent of 25 percent of its GDP with nothing coming back. <br /><br /> Cash-strapped Greece was second on the list spending the equivalent of close to 25 percent of its GDP on bailouts.<br /><br /> Across the eurozone as a whole the rescue packages cost some €500bn euros.<br /><br /> However, it has transpired that France, Italy, Finland, Slovakia and Estonia spent next to nothing on bank bailouts.
