Anglo Irish gets top up for fresh loan losses

The Finance Ministry said the cash was part of the e10bn of extra funds which earlier this year Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said the bank could need.

Anglo Irish was taken over after it was exposed to the property crash and suffered a series of loan and deposit scandals. It is the biggest banking burden for a state grappling with one of the eurozone's biggest debt problems. The bank has extensive property interests in Yorkshire.

To minimise the impact on the Exchequer, Mr Lenihan is injecting the capital in the form of a promissory note, payable over up to 15 years, he said.

The need for the fresh capital arises because Anglo Irish is getting a lower price for loans sold to the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), Ireland's "bad bank" scheme.

Further impairments on the part of its loan book remaining after the sales of its property loans to NAMA is also leading to an additional capital requirement, Mr Lenihan said.

Anglo Irish is expected to explore options of splitting the bank in two and an alternative of winding it down over time.

Earlier, the EU approved a one-month extension to Ireland's separate guarantee scheme for bank liabilities, of which Anglo Irish is one of the beneficiaries.