Last Thursday was the 68th birthday of Mario Draghi, but at the central bank’s new headquarters in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, it was the ECB president who delivered the gift surprise to the markets when he suggested that the quantitative easing (QE) programme of buying bonds in the markets, which is officially called “non-standard monetary policy measures,” would likely be ramped up. Meanwhile ECB data on interest rates show that Irish rates are above equivalent rates in Italy and Spain.