Is this the end? Have we genuinely come to a final reckoning on the total cost of rescuing Anglo Irish Bank? Finance minister Brian Lenihan made what was billed as the definitive statement on the figure last Thursday. But instead of a single, all-in number we got a range: €29.3bn in a base-case scenario, rising to €34.3bn in a 'stress' scenario.

As the influential Financial Times Alphaville blog remarked: "[The] announcements have offered a deluge of decision on the Irish crisis. But on this point, at least, it isn't over yet, sadly."

The headline €34.2bn worst-case figure did come in below – just - the more nightmarish Standard and Poor's estimate of €35bn or more but it is still far higher than the €25bn number produced by Anglo's management in August, while it dwarfs the government's €22bn estimate from back in March.

This pattern of dramatic upward revision of losses has been repeated many times in the past two years: the worst case becomes the base case as the banks and state take an over-optimistic view of how bad things can really get. Will this time be any different?

"The regulator is not leaving anything on the table here," said one Dublin credit analyst, who suggested Ireland had now achieved total transparency on its likely future losses at Anglo and the other banks.

Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan, with help from the NTMA, Nama, Anglo, the Department of Finance and an unnamed 'third party', has taken an aggressive approach to calculating Anglo's ultimate losses by applying a haircut of 67%-70% on the €19bn in loans still to transfer to Nama. He is also applying very limited recovery values in the base case and assuming no recovery in the stress case.

But some commentators, especially those who have been warning since Nama's inception that losses were being underestimated, are still not satisfied, even by the government's higher figure.

"Why should we believe them now?" said Brian Lucey, associate professor in finance at Trinity College Dublin. "I don't think people realise how sequentially incredible the government has been. The only good thing is that the upper level of the government estimate is finally overlapping with the lower level of the independent estimates."

Lucey and other independent commentators, such as Trinity economics lecturer Constantin Gurdgiev and banking consultant Peter Mathews, have consistently argued that Anglo's cost to the state is likely to reach €40bn. They say the government should pencil in a higher figure now rather than face another embarrassing revision later.

"We've got one chance in the next four weeks to really come clean," Mathews told the Sunday Tribune. "My figure for embedded losses is now at least €40bn."

The security of the final figure rests on three variables, according to the Central Bank: economic circumstances, future funding costs and the effectiveness of management. The first two are largely out of Ireland's control, while the track record of Anglo's new management has been mixed so far because the cost of the bailout was underestimated and the European Commission rejected the business plan.

The key element, though, is what happens to commercial property prices and how that affects the discount on Anglo's Nama-bound loans. Nama is now going to take those loans on an accelerated timetable, removing them from the Anglo balance sheet by the end of the month. This has the advantage of ending the constant speculation about haircuts, but also means due diligence will have to occur after the transfers take place.

Having committed €23bn to Anglo already, the state is on the hook for at least €6bn more and possibly €11bn. Bank bailouts have seen Ireland's deficit rocket to 32% of GDP for 2010. The minister insisted this shocking number is a temporary effect of taking the pain upfront. But if we've again underestimated just how bad Anglo is, the pain will continue into next year.