Following the disclosure that the Green Party has now changed its position in regard to the future of Anglo Irish Bank, it is essential that the Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, now clarifies what exactly are the government’s proposals for the bank.

With the Greens now supporting a quicker wind-down of Anglo, the Fianna Fail position of keeping the bank afloat regardless of the cost, is now a minority view within the Dail.
€22 billion of taxpayers’ money has already been committed to Anglo by the government, with a further one to two billion committed to Nationwide. But neither Brian Lenihan nor Brian Cowen, the principal advocates of keeping these two institutions afloat, can give us any idea of the potential final cost.

The uncertainty over the final cost of bailing out Anglo is one of the principal reasons why Standard and Poors last week downgraded Ireland’s credit rating. We are repeatedly told that the markets don’t like uncertainty, but the deep divisions that have now opened up between the two parties in government are likely to fuel further uncertainty.

The bind in which the country now finds itself, is a direct consequence of the inclusion of Anglo in the blanket bank guarantee introduced by the government in September 2008, with the full support of the Green Party. Rather than being ‘the cheapest bailout in the world, so far’, as we were told by Minister Lenihan two years ago, this has been the most expensive bank rescue in the world which has placed a financial millstone around the necks of generations of Irish taxpayers.

There is no solution to the Anglo problem that will not be costly, but all the evidence suggests that the orderly wind-down of the bank will be less expensive than government plans to continue pumping money into this bottomless pit.

It is now absolutely essential that Minister Lenihan makes a comprehensive statement on government plans for Anglo. This cannot await the resumption of the Dail at the end of next month. The Dail should be sitting this month to discuss this and other issues. But if the government is unwilling to recall the House, the very least the Minister should do is appear before the Committee on Finance and the Public Service within the next few days.