Anglo failure would 'bring down' Ireland

..(madnews) -- The failure of Anglo Irish bank, the lender at the centre of the country's financial crisis, would "bring down" Ireland, the country's finance minister said, as he vowed the government would stand behind the institution as it winds down.
Dublin will on Thursday unveil a fresh recapitalisation of Anglo Irish and seek to draw a line under its banking crisis. But doing so will raise the cost of its taxpayer-funded bail-out of the banks to up to €35bn ($48bn) and lift the country's fiscal deficit to a record expected to be as much as 30 per cent of gross domestic product.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Brian Lenihan, finance minister, said Ireland had no choice but to act.
"Any Anglo failure would bring down the sovereign. It is systemically important not because of any intrinsic merit in the bank. But because of its size relative to the national balance sheet. No country could contemplate the failure of such an institution," he said. As part of the new bail-out the finance minister will authorise the immediate transfer of Anglo Irish's remaining €25.9bn in non-performing property loans to the National Asset Management Agency, the government body set up to house troubled assets from the banking crisis.