There has been mixed reaction to the announcement tonight that Anglo Irish Bank is to be fully nationalised.
Fine Gael said this evening the Government had finally been forced into recognising their mistaken approach to Anglo Irish.
"The handling of this issue confirms, once again, that the Government are all at sea on economic
policy and are lurching from one u-turn to the next. First it was the multiple u-turns on the Budget, then the requirement for recapitalisation of Irish banks, then the idea of a pay freeze, and then finally their u-turn on Anglo Irish Bank's entitlement to be included in the recapitalisation programme," said the party's deputy leader and finance spokesman Richard Bruton.
"This latest of u-turns, while the correct decision that will help protect the viability of the remaining banks, does not bode well for the steady and assured management of the economy in the future. Finally, the Government needs to clarify if today's announcement has the effect of extending the State guarantee to any additional liabilities of the bank, including the owners of €2billion in perpetual preference shares," he added.
The Labour Party said that the decision to take the Bank into public ownership "left the Government's banking policy in ruins."
The party's Finance spokeswoman Joan Burton said that an unknown quantity of bad debt, running to billions of euro, had now effectively been taken on by the exchequer.
"From the very outset, the Government's approach has been based on avoiding the full nationalisation of Anglo, and it went to extraordinary lengths to that end," said Burton.
"Only a few weeks ago, the Government was prepared to pour €1.5 billion of taxpayer's money into Anglo – a bank which now it says cannot be funded.
"The sheer incompetence is breathtaking. The damage to the exchequer unknown," she added.
Elsewhere, Sinn Féin described the decision of the Government to nationalise Anglo Irish Bank as the right move but the wrong bank.
"Sinn Féin would support the establishment of a state bank and would see it in the context of a critical piece of infrastructure which could be directed to support small and medium sized enterprises. However there are too many don't knows in respect of Anglo Irish Bank," said the party's finance spokesman Arthur Morgan
