The public’s worst fears have been realised with the disclosure today that Anglo Irish Bank now has total impaired debts on its books of €4.9bn; that it has reported €4.1bn in losses for the six month period to March; and that its losses are likely to reach €7.5bn.

It now clear that the situation in Anglo Irish is even worse than we had been led to believe. These are the worst losses ever recorded by an Irish bank and must rank among the worst performances of any bank, anywhere. The bad debts acquired in this six month period alone amount to almost two thirds of the €6bn loan losses that we were told only last October would be acquired over a two year period

The Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, must come clean on the situation in Anglo Irish. If the taxpayer is now going to have to inject up to €4bn in recapitalisation, as Minister Lenihan is proposing, then they are entitled to assurances from him that the bank has a future.

We are now paying a very high price for Minister Lenihan’s dithering. Instead of acting to nationalise Anglo Irish last September, as he was advised to do by his own officials, he instead proceeded with the ill-considered Bank Guarantee scheme and allowed the situation in Anglo Irish to further deteriorate and to continue to operate under the control of reckless and irresponsible management. The Minister’s equivocation may have given the developers some additional time, but it caused further damage to core Irish Banks, such as Bank of Ireland and AIB, further restricting the flow of credit and contributing to job losses.

Minister Lenihan must set out his strategy, if he has one, for the future of Anglo Irish. The taxpayers who are now being asked to put their hands in their pockets yet again, are also entitled to know the identities of the 15 developers who, according to the PwC report, had loans each of more than €500m.