The disclosure that the taxpayer is facing an additional potential bill of €11.5bn for bailing out Anglo Irish, in addition to the €22bn already committed, will come as a further shock to citizens who are already staggering under the weight of the financial millstone placed around their necks by the government’s rescue package for banks and developers.

I have said on many occasions that the €22bn already committed by the government was not likely to represent the full extent of the bill facing the taxpayer and the disclosure that a loan of €11.5bn loan to the bank is secured only on highly risky property loans would seem to confirm this.

This the second occasion within a week in which figures provided by Fianna Fail on the cost of decisions they have taken have proven to be hopelessly inaccurate. Last week the government was forced to admit that the draft business plan published for NAMA had seriously underestimated the potential cost to the taxpayer and now we have this shocking news about the cost of the Anglo bailout.

The fact is, or course, that in virtually every decision taken by the government in regard to the banks, the government has got it wrong. Nowhere has this been more spectacularly evident than in regard to Anglo. The absolute determination of Fianna Fail to keep Anglo afloat, regardless of the cost to the taxpayer, has been one of the great mysteries of Irish political life.

The origins of the Anglo crisis occurred in 2008, during the period when Brian Cowen was Minister for Finance, when the share price collapsed following the use by the Quinn family of the controversial Contracts for Difference to acquire a significant shareholding in the bank. Not only did Brian Cowen take no action when the share price collapsed, as Minister for Finance he had facilitated the use of Contracts for Difference by reversing a decision to subject them to stamp duty.

The Irish taxpayer is now facing a monumental bill for decisions taken by Fianna Fail and particularly those taken on Brian Cowen’s watch as Minister for Finance.