The Irish taxpayer will pump more money into Irish Nationwide than Britain will spend on the entire bailout of its significantly larger banking system, and Ireland's bank crisis will cost 14 times that of Britain.

The government is committing €2.7bn to Irish Nationwide as part of the €32bn rescue here, but the entire hit to Britain's Treasury of supporting Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds is now expected to be just €2.4bn.

Fears are growing that the €32bn cost of the bank rescue here will in­crease as the number of performing loans at Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide has slumped significantly and valuations for the next two tranches of loans being transferred by those institutions to Nama are expected to come in well below the average 50% haircut.

The Central Bank, Financial Regulator and Department of Finance had a hopelessly optimistic outlook on the nationalisation of Irish Nationwide in September 2008, according to documents released by the Dáil Public Accounts Committee last week.