Ireland accepts $113 bil bailout package

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LONDON - European officials rescued their second country in seven months Sunday, offering financially strapped Ireland a bailout package worth $113 billion in a bid to shore up confidence in the battered euro.

Dublin quickly accepted the lifeline, hoping to calm investors ahead of the opening of international markets today. The move was a humiliating concession by the Irish government, which had insisted for weeks that it did not need outside help to deal with its crushing public debt and crippled banking sector.

All eyes are now turned to Portugal and Spain, where, in many ways, the true mettle of the Irish bailout will be tested. Fear that Lisbon and Madrid are in danger of defaulting has led investors to dump those countries' bonds and push up their borrowing costs.

Officials of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund hope that their rescue of Ireland will reassure investors of the euro's soundness and head off the need for bailouts on the Iberian Peninsula, especially of Spain, the EU's fourth-largest economy.

"This program can underpin market confidence and bring Ireland's economy back on track," Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the IMF, said in a prepared statement.

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