European Union regulators granted provisional approval today for the State to provide an emergency recapitalisation worth up to €10.44 billion to Anglo Irish Bank.
The European Commission also temporarily approved €2.7 billion for Irish Nationwide Building Society, saying the aid was necessary to guarantee Ireland's financial stability.
It approved both measures for six months.
The commission said it had at the same time begun an in-depth investigation into the total aid received by Anglo Irish Bank and its accompanying restructuring plan.
"There is no doubt that both Anglo Irish Bank and INBS need a significant recapitalisation to meet their obligations," EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement.
"However, INBS needs to establish a viable restructuring plan and Anglo Irish Bank has to restructure profoundly in a way that effectively tackles the weaknesses of the past business model and ensures a sustainable future without continued state support," Mr Almunia said.
This afternoon Anglo revealed that it made a pretax loss of €12.7 billion for the 15 months to the end of December last. It has also reported an impairment charge of €15 billion. On December 31st 2009 the bank said it had €34.6 billion in impaired loans.
Yesterday Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan revealed that State-owned Anglo Irish Bank may require an additional €10 billion of taxpayers’ money. This is on top of the €8.3 billion committed as part of the €21.8 billion bank recapitalisation package announced in the Dáil.
The Government’s banking plan was approved by 83 votes to 68 in the House late last night.
The recapitalisation plan initially sent shares in Bank of Ireland and AIB higher on the Dublin market.
However, at close of trading Bank of Ireland was up 24 per cent at €1.60 with over 22 million shares traded while, AIB stock was 3.7 per cent lower at €1.20 with 20 million shares traded.
The additional €10 billion – to meet future losses on loans going into the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) – would bring the total cost of bailing out Anglo to €22.3 billion.
The State already put €4 billion into Anglo Irish last year to cover its losses up to that point and the Dáil was told yesterday it needs another €8.3 billion – to be injected this week – to cover losses of about €12.5 billion for 2009, which the bank will report today.
The additional €10 billion capital hole at Anglo only emerged yesterday morning when the bank was told that Nama would buy its first loans at a discount of 50 per cent to their original value. Anglo had expected a “haircut” of 28 per cent and based its capital requirements around this figure.
The higher discount applied by Nama surprised the bank and shocked the Dáil chamber when it was revealed by the Minister.
Mr Lenihan insisted the cost of winding down the bank, in either the short or long term, would be greater and would generate enormous instability for the State with potentially long-term damage to the economy.
The bank has put the cost of winding itself down over 10 years at between €18 billion and €22 billion. “I understand why many want us to lose this bank. I understand the impulse to obliterate it from the system but I cannot, as Minister for Finance, countenance such a course of action,” he said.
Mr Lenihan said some institutions were worse than others, but the system “to a greater or lesser extent, engaged in reckless property development lending”.
“The detailed information that has emerged from the banks in the course of the Nama process is truly shocking. At every hand’s turn, our worst fears have been surpassed.”
In too many cases, Mr Lenihan added, there were also shoddy banking practices. “The banks played fast and loose with the economic interests of this country.”
Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton said the taxpayer was now facing a bill of €40 billion or more for bailing out Anglo Irish.
Defending Nama today, Minister for Communications, Energy and National Resources Eamon Ryan said: “What we did insist would not happen is on behalf of the taxpayer we would be taking loans out of banks at a value that was false. And we went in and went on a loan by loan basis what we found is yes the values weren’t as good. Therefore we discounted it down”.
Fine Gael’s spokesman on enterprise, Leo Varadkar said: “We should think about what happened yesterday - essentially the national debt was doubled at the stroke of a pen. For the average person listening to this it’s like adding an extra €50,000 to your mortgage that you’re going to have to pay for the rest of your life”.
The interest repayments on our national debt are going to be more than we spend on education, he added.
Mr Varadkar said Fine Gael supported the bank guarantee originally in order to prevent a run on the banks.
“The whole purpose of the bank guarantee was to give us time, to give us time to come up with a solution to sort out the banking crisis at the least cost to the taxpayer,” he added.
Elsewhere, the Minister said that AIB, Bank of Ireland, Irish Nationwide Building Society and the EBS would need a total of €13.5 billion in new capital. AIB would need €7.4 billion, Bank of Ireland €2.7 billion, Irish Nationwide Building Society €2.6 billion and EBS building society €875 million, he said.
Not all of this would come in the form of new investments, he said; some would be raised privately.