The cost of paying the interest on the money borrowed to bail out Ireland’s banks was €650m last year, according to a report by the State’s spending watchdog.
Excluding the interest bill, the total net cost of the bank bailout was €42 billion, the Comptroller and Auditor General said in a report today.
It represented 18% of Ireland’s national debt last year.
The gross cost of the bailout was €47.2bn which was partly offset by the €5.2 billion surplus accumulated by the National Assets Management Agency.
The most significant cost was bailing out Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide which had a net cost of €39.1 billion.
It said the net outturn for AIB had an estimated cost of €8.4 billion, the stabilisation of PTSB cost €1.2 billion and the investment in Bank of Ireland yeilded a positive return of €1.5 billion.
