Today’s Government statement on the future of Anglo Irish Bank has failed to clarify the Minister’s intentions on this crucial issue for the country. Having spent two years insisting that Anglo must continue in its present form, the Government has finally abandoned their failed policy.

Yet, even as they u-turn, the announcement has left a whole series of questions unanswered about the future of Anglo, at a time when the markets urgently require clarity from the Irish Government.

Yesterday's extension of the time and scope of the bank guarantee shows that nearly two years after our banking crisis hit, we are still no closer to a resolution.

Speaking at a public meeting in Sligo town last night on Ireland’s economic future, Deputy Joan Burton slammed the Government’s ham-fisted response to the country’s economic crisis.

“Rather than concentrating on getting Ireland working again, Fianna Fáil have concentrated almost exclusively on saving Anglo Irish, their beloved builders’ bank."

Writing in this month's 'Women Mean Business' magazine, Joan sets out a 5 step jobs plan to get Ireland moving again...

I have great sympathy for the 36 employees of Bank of Scotland (Ireland) told today that they will definitely join the 750 who lost their jobs at the bank earlier this year and for the 800 employees who will now be very worried about their futures as the bank’s activities are wound down over time.

Irish citizens will find it extraordinary that the government is using the Central Bank Governor to drip feed bad news about the Irish banks from half way across the world.

Hot on the heels of the EU Commission’s announcement last week that at least €24bn will be pumped into Anglo, the Central Bank Governor today said that the bill for bailing out Irish Nationwide and EBS is likely to rise to €4bn.

The disclosure that the taxpayer is facing an additional potential bill of €11.5bn for bailing out Anglo Irish, in addition to the €22bn already committed, will come as a further shock to citizens who are already staggering under the weight of the financial millstone placed around their necks by the government’s rescue package for banks and developers.

The publication this evening of the Nama business plan indicates that in the nine months since the draft business plan was published, the people in Nama have revised their estimate of Nama making a profit over its life of €4.8bn to a worse case scenario of losses of €0.8bn a turnaround in nine months of over €5bn. Clearly the first Nama draft plan was a fantasy. It is difficult to seriously believe the revised plan except in so far that it means more pain and no gain for Irish taxpayers.

Fianna Fáil has opted for a flood of bank inquiries, to distract attention from the fact that every single one of them is being carefully constructed to ignore the role played by Fianna Fáil Taoisigh and Ministers in Ireland’s banking collapse.

What Minister Brian Lenihan now proposes is no less than three separate inquiries: a sworn commission of investigation; a report from the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance; and an ‘external review’ of the Department of Finance.

Joan submitted at the committee stage of the Central Bank Reform Bill 2010 an amendment which would have seen the proposed Section 35 A & B deleted and replaced with an amendment which would have provided specifically that the Central Bank would be in a position to facilitate the voluntary merger of credit unions in the State in the interests of improving financial stability and management of the credit union sector.