There's a good reprint of a New York Times article in The Irish Times today.

Paul Krugman tells us:
"Ireland had none of the American right’s favourite villains: there was no Community Reinvestment Act, no Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac..."

Ironically Mr Krugman then indicates who Ireland's Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are.

"...More surprising, perhaps, was the unimportance of exotic finance: Ireland’s bust wasn’t a tale of collateralised debt obligations and credit default swaps; it was an old-fashioned case of excess, in which banks made big loans to questionable borrowers, and taxpayers ended up holding the bag.

The Banks, the questionable borrowers, dodgy Taoiseach who instated dodgy Regulators, now I geddit. AIB, Anglo-Irish - the whole sorry lot of them - plied their wealthiest most well-connected clients with our money.

Mr Krugman continues:

"So what can we learn from the way Ireland had a US-type financial crisis with very different institutions? Mainly, that we have to focus as much on the regulators as on the regulations. By all means, let’s limit both leverage and the use of securitisation – which were part of what Canada did right. But such measures won’t matter unless they’re enforced by people who see it as their duty to say no to powerful bankers."

Since these people are appointed by government, their duty invariably is to their benefactor not to the Irish people.
There's your problem right buddy.