US stocks plummet on as eurozone debates Ireland's debt crisis

Ireland did not ask for a bail-out from the European Union, insisting it can still manage its finances. But eurozone ministers in Brussels agreed to send a joint team with the International Monetary Fund to consider a package targeted at Ireland's struggling banking sector.

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner suggested that European policymakers needed to move quicker to shore up Ireland's economy than they had with Greece's debt crisis earlier this year.

"The lessons of that (Greece) experience, which I think Europe learned a little painfully last summer, is that you want to do this quickly and decisively and not wait," Geithner told a forum hosted in Washington by The Wall Street Journal.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 178.47 points, or 1.59 percent, to 11,023.5. The broader Standard and Poor's 500 index plunged 19.41 points, or 1.62 percent, to 1,178.34. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index plummeted 43.98 points, or 1.75 percent, to 2,469.84.

The US currency gained against the euro to 74.13 euro cents from 73.6 euro cents Monday. The dollar rose against the Japanese currency to 83.29 yen from 83.09 yen.