Do we learn anything from listening to the news ?

My local NPR (National Public Radio) affiliate (KCLU) runs an hour of BBC World Service from 8 PM to 9 PM every evening. That works out to be the 3AM hour in London, which is probably a sleepy time there, but would be morning drive time around the Persian Gulf.
Tonight, on my way home after a business dinner, I heard the news anchorman say: "To give you an idea of the magnitude of Ireland's financial problems, let me share this number: The total bank debt of Ireland is equal to one and a half time the value of Ireland's entire economy."

The more I thought about this, the less I understood. What did he say ?

The easiest part of this is "the value of Ireland's economy". He is almost certainly talking about the annual gross domestic product figure for Ireland. Although "value" to me would more closely be associated with "worth" (assets) we are so used to comparing everything to the annual GDP that one needs a good reason to choose any other yardstick, so as long as he is not clearly describing a different yardstick that is probably what he meant; he just wanted a more colloquial phrase for it.

But what is "the total bank debt"? I can think of several possibilities:

a) The total debt owed to the banks in Ireland.
As far as the banks in Ireland are concerned, that would be an asset.
If this includes the total amount of mortgage debt owed on all the
"real estate" in Ireland, that does not seem excessive.
b) The total debt owed *BY* the banks of Ireland.
Without comparing it to the assets of Ireland, we don't know if the banks
are in good shape or in bad shape.
c) The *net* debt owed by the banks of Ireland.
This sort of implies that the banks are all grossly insolvent. Indeed,
if the sum of the negative balance sheet of all the banks is equal to
the annual GDP, then the banking system is in very bad shape.
That matches the headline. But is is even conceivable that the banks
would be allowed to continue doing business (by the local banking
regulators as well as by the foreign banks that they do business with)
if they were that grossly insolvent ? I sure would not want to leave any
transaction unsettled overnight with a bank that deep in the hole.

I would not be surprised at hearing this kind of garbage on an American commercial radio station, but I used to think that the BBC was better than this.