Anglo Irish Bank report to be published

A SECTION of the PricewaterhouseCoopers report dealing with Anglo Irish Bank will be made public, but Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan has ruled out publishing the entire report on all six banks included in the guarantee scheme.

Joe Costello (Labour, Dublin Central) had asked that the full report, including all sections on all banks be laid in the Leinster House library before the introduction next month of legislation to recapitalise AIB and Bank of Ireland. He said the Minister had indicated in the Dáil on Wednesday that the full report “would be laid in the library for us to peruse. It was the intention that it would cover all of the banks and the Minister seemed to indicate that he was prepared to do that.” Mr Lenihan said “regarding Anglo Irish Bank, yes”.

When Mr Costello said the Minister pledged he would take out “confidential items” but release the entire report, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan said “the Minister indicated that he would examine whether that would be possible regarding the Anglo Irish Bank part. He did not make a commitment on the rest of the report, which is commercially sensitive.”

Earlier Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said Mr Lenihan should do what the Financial Regulator did and resign. “The fact that the Financial Regulator was forced to resign because he knew about the loans from Anglo Irish Bank should lead the Minister to step down from his position as a patriotic gesture. However, the Fianna Fáil members do not do that. They do not read their brief and the recommendations, and they will continue on with business as usual.”

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said the €7 billion for the two banks “is the single biggest expenditure of public money this House has ever been asked to consider. It is four times what the two banks concerned together were worth at the close of business yesterday evening.

“It is five times the amount of money the Government wants to raise in the proposed pension levy,” Mr Gilmore added.