Cowen hopes cost will be revealed next month

TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen said the Government had taken a decision to split Anglo Irish Bank into a funding bank and an asset recovery bank.

Mr Cowen said he hoped the final cost of the plan could be revealed with “the maximum certainty we can” by October.

“The big decision today is that we have decided on how this bank is going to go forward by the deposit bank and also the asset recovery bank. We’ve made that strategic decision.”

Assets would be “worked out over the optimum period” to get the best possible return for the taxpayer, he told RTÉ yesterday evening.

A spokesman for the Green Party expressed satisfaction with the strategy because he said it did not endorse the proposal favoured by Anglo Irish Bank management.

“In recent times the Green Party expressed concerns that actions needed to be set in train on this issue sooner rather than later. We’re satisfied this is being done. We’re satisfied that the strategy does not endorse the Anglo plan leading to the emergence of . . . a potential new banking force because we did not see that as a viable option at all.”

Fine Gael finance spokesman Michael Noonan said he wanted the plan to work but expressed concern that there were no figures in the statement from Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan.

Mr Noonan said he did not think the new plan would be sanctioned by the European Commission until 2011.

“We’re within a week of the second anniversary of the Lehman’s collapse. Other banks have gone down all over the world and they have been rescued. They’ve been recapitalised, they’re functioning again.”

Labour Party finance spokeswoman Joan Burton said Mr Lenihan’s statement was “cobbled together” and had failed to clarify his intentions.