On the night of 29th September, 2008 the Taoiseach and Minister for Finance met in conclave with senior bankers and mandarins.

They concocted what was supposed to be ‘the cheapest bank rescue in the world’, but the bank guarantee was just a high-stakes bluff. Now that their bluff has been called, they are left holding a busted flush, and the enormous bill is being passed on to Irish taxpayers through NAMA and the €36bn bailout announced on Wednesday.

Paying off the Anglo Irish and Irish Nationwide element of the bailout alone could cost up to €21bn over ten years, the same as increasing the standard rate of tax from 20% to 25%.

All of this flows from the disastrous decision to guarantee €440bn of the banks’ liabilities back in September 2008.

The Labour Party stood alone in the Dáil in opposing the blanket bank guarantee, attracting harsh criticism at the time.

There is now a growing realisation among commentators, and even from Fine Gael’s Michael Noonan, that Labour made the correct call in opposing the guarantee.