Diarmuid Doyle (News, 11 April) described me as "just another self-interested banker trying to keep his job" and claimed I no longer represented the public interest. He is wrong on both counts.

I was appointed to the board of Anglo Irish Bank in December 2008 as a public interest director. When the bank was nationalised and a new board appointed in January 2009, the mandate remained the same. The board has appointed a new management team which includes a number of external appointees (including the CEO) with a wide range of experience in all aspects of banking, including restructuring operations. Its mission is to turn the bank around and it has produced a restructuring plan which involves splitting the 'post-Nama' entity into a new bank and an asset run-off company for remaining distressed loans. This will entail reducing the bank's exposure and its risk level, thereby reducing its reliance on the taxpayer. In this way, the bank's board, management and staff are working in the public interest.

My statements to the effect that winding the bank down over a period would be a more expensive option than continuing it in operation are neither "contention" nor "assertion" as Mr Doyle asserts. They are the outcome of a careful analysis, with expert external advice, of the series of possible options, ranging from immediate liquidation to continued operation. The fact that Mr Doyle appears not to have noticed that many of the issues involved in this analysis have been debated in the media does not vitiate the conclusion.

Mr Doyle wants a "sensible narrative around why Anglo should remain open". This is, in fact, already in the public domain.

Winding down the bank, over whatever period, realises whatever the final losses on the distressed loans turn out to be. Existing performing loans would, on the face of it, be unaffected. As these work out, however, the volume of continuing business would diminish, leaving the bank with less and less resources to meet continuing and unavoidable costs. Over time, this would give rise to a funding requirement, which could be borne only by the government and the taxpayer. To the extent that borrowers in a position to do so refinanced their loans in other institutions, the wind-down of the bank's normal business would be accelerated. An announcement of a wind-down would trigger a withdrawal of deposits from the bank and, in all probability, from other banks also. A fire sale of the bank's loan book (recommended by one academic economist) would certainly realise less than could be achieved by a disposal over a longer period and would have the same effect as the announcement of a wind-down. Either scenario would create an immediate issue for senior bondholders, who rank equally with depositors. Some commentators claim that negotiations could be opened with these senior bondholders to get them to 'share the pain'. In all likelihood, this would trigger a cross default to all unconditional debt. This, in turn, would trigger the government guarantee, with immediate recourse to the taxpayer, and with immediate adverse effects on the government's ability to fund its own activities. To my mind, the claimed differences between a gradual run-down and an immediate closure are probably academic. Once it is announced that a bank is going out of business, depositors and markets will lose interest in anything after 'today'.

Keeping the bank open, on the other hand, and splitting it into a 'good bank' and a 'bad bank' avoids a withdrawal of deposits, allows the bank to maintain its own funding operations and allows it to engage in profitable business. In time, the 'good bank' could be a candidate for resale back into the private sector with the prospect of an upside for the state and the taxpayer. It is not at all difficult to see where the public interest lies.

Mr Doyle claims that I am involved in all of this for a "so-far undisclosed salary". I am not paid a salary as a non-executive director (nor will I be as chairman from next July). I receive director's fees and all payments made to me from the time I joined the board in December 2008 up to the end of 2009 were disclosed in the bank's recently-published annual report and accounts 2009. All payments made to me in the course of this year will be similarly disclosed in the next annual report.

Alan Dukes,

alandukes@eircom.net