The taxpayer put a total of €64.1 billion into the Irish banks during the financial crisis.
The key question in 2025 is how much of that has been recovered 17 years after the financial meltdown.
The most egregious boomtime lenders were Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide.
When the banking crisis unfolded in 2008 and 2009, it became clear both financial institutions were in the deepest trouble.
As the property market ground to a halt, the scale of the financial abyss grew in Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide.
Eventually, the State put €34.5bn into both.
Of that €1.1bn has been recovered to date, the Department of Finance said today.
The remaining €33.4bn is an irrecoverable “sunk cost”, it said.
Both financial institutions were liquidated and put into Irish Bank Resolution Corporation which tried to retrieve what it could.
The next largest bailout was the rescue of AIB which required a massive €20.8bn of taxpayers’ money.
A lot of progress has been made over recent years, and the State has finally recovered €19.8bn as it sold off the last of its shares in the bank today.
The taxpayer still owns warrants in AIB which gives it the right to buy more shares in future.
It is likely it will sell these warrants which could yield in the region of €250 million.
As things stand, the taxpayer is down €750m on the bailout of AIB.
The State’s shareholding in Bank of Ireland was sold off entirely in 2022.
The Government recovered €6.7bn from its investment of €4.7bn in Bank of Ireland.
The taxpayer had bailed out PTSB to the tune of €3.9bn.
It has recovered €2.7bn from fees, dividends and selling shares.
The State still owns just over half of the bank, a shareholding worth €600m.
The taxpayer is still owed about €600m from the bailout of PTSB and is likely to continue to sell its stake in the bank.
In a nutshell, the only bank that has fully repaid its taxpayer bailout is Bank of Ireland.
There are many ways to analyse the full cost to the public of the banking and economic crisis.
The bailout had a huge impact on the public finances, partly caused by the EU/IMF bailout and added to a surge in unemployment and emigration.
All of these added to the enormous burden carried by people who faced higher taxes and declining wages.
But looking at the recapitalisation of the banks in isolation and funds recovered by the taxpayer, so far the cost is approximately €32bn.
Pay cap removed at AIB and PTSB after AIB stake sale
