Taxpayer facing €7.5bn Anglo bailout

THE Government could be forced to pump up to €7.5 billion of taxpayer money into Anglo Irish Bank after the troubled institution posted the worst losses by a bank in the history of the state.

Anglo is to receive a massive €4bn cash injection after it reported losses of €4.1bn for the six months to the end of March. The loss is made up totally of bad debt write-offs which have wiped out the bank’s balance sheet overnight.

The bank said it expects to have to write off €7.5bn over three years to 2011 as loans to its elite clientele of property developers continue to go sour.