The 2008–2010 Irish financial crisis is a major ongoing economic crisis in Ireland that is in part responsible for the country falling into recession for the first time since the 1980s. The Irish government officially announced it was in recession in September 2008, with a sharp rise in unemployment occurring in the following months. The Republic of Ireland was the first state in the Eurozone to enter recession as declared by the Central Statistics Office. The numbers of people claiming unemployment benefit in Ireland rose to 326,000 in January 2009, the highest monthly level since records began in 1967. This occurrence followed the unexpected resignation of former Anglo Irish Bank director Anne Heraty from the board of the Irish Stock Exchange the night before.

[Last contributor : WildBot , Content under LGPL licence]