Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is important to recall what happened. Anglo Irish Bank was a bad bank that went bust and caused enormous damage to the country. It was bailed out by a previous Government of Fianna Fáil and the Green Party to the tune of €30 billion and we will not see very much of that money ever again. The Fine Gael-Labour Party Government that replaced that Government adopted a different approach. It liquidated the bank which was at the time called the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation because the Irish Nationwide Building Society had been merged with Anglo Irish Bank. We pursued the different policy of liquidation. A pot of money is usually left after a company is liquidated that has to be distributed and the Revenue Commissioners, workers and secured creditors receive preference. It all goes down the line. In this liquidation, however, it turned out that a lot more money was left over than people had expected. As a consequence, a relatively small number of junior bondholders will receive about €260 million back. The people and the State will receive back more than twice that amount, or €600 million. That is welcome and positive.

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