The Irish Independent reports that Finance Minister Brian Lenihan will plead today with Brussels to allow the gradual closure of Anglo Irish Bank over 10 years.

The newspaper reveals the minister's plans for a wind-up of its operations will include a guarantee for all deposits held with the bank, regardless of their size. Amid spiralling worries about its impact on the economy, the Government has decided on a 10-year wind-down period.

EU finance ministers will converge in Brussels today for talks on the financial crisis. European Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, who will have the final say on Anglo's fate, will meet Mr Lenihan on the future of the bank which has already cost taxpayers €25bn.

Sources were unable to put an estimate on the cost of a 10-year wind-down, saying it depended on numerous factors such as interest rates and the state of the property market. The 10-year plan, which is some way shorter than had been expected, will form the centrepiece of the Government's plans after Anglo bosses appeared to throw in the towel over staying open.

Anglo chief executive Mike Aynsley said at the weekend: "The European Commission is saying 'This bank has dropped €25bn and it doesn't deserve to survive', and they're right." He added that the 'good bank/bad bank' split "doesn't look like it is going to happen".

The Brussels meeting will mark the culmination of weeks of intensive talks between bank bosses, the Department of Finance and the European Commission.

Both the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) will have a significant say on the future of Anglo and the minister may also discuss the issue with ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet at the two-day Ecofin meeting of finance ministers.

In his meetings with Mr Almunia, Mr Lenihan is expected to press for an early decision from the European Commission on the Government's Anglo plans. Sources said it was hoped there would be some "finality" and "closure" within the next two weeks.

The package of proposals suggested by Mr Lenihan will come as a major blow to Mr Aynsley, who argued a good bank/bad bank was the best solution for the institution.

But the Government pulled away from that option over the past week after the European Commission became increasingly sceptical of the 'good bank' proposals.

It has been testing the Government's claims that keeping the bank open would incur the lowest cost to taxpayers since an original submission was made in May.

At the weekend, Mr Almunia said the commission was "dealing with serious problems" affecting the Irish banking industry.

The Government's decision to opt for a 10-year wind-down was last night described as "one of the most historical U-turns in the history of the country" by Labour's finance spokeswoman Joan Burton.

Worst

"The minister needs to be in damage limitation mode now ... this bank risks dragging everything down," she said.

"This is what is killing Ireland. This is the biggest bank failure, proportionately, on the planet in terms of the amount of GNP it is taking."

Fine Gael's deputy finance spokesman Kieran O'Donnell last night urged Mr Lenihan to make a public statement clarifying the future of Anglo Irish Bank. He claimed that the Government had procrastinated over the "dead bank" for two years.

Only last week, Anglo posted losses of €8.2bn for the first half of 2010, claiming it was still battling through an exceptionally difficult period.

The Government and Anglo have repeatedly insisted the bailout will cost taxpayers €25bn, but serious doubts were cast over this estimate two weeks ago when credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) put the figure at €35bn.

Since then, Anglo Irish Bank has been the subject of major commentary abroad with the 'Financial Times' claiming it is "still the rotting corpse in the disaster zone of Irish banking".

The Irish Independent also reports that Ulster Bank said it will keep all 236 branches open and start opening around a sixth of its branches on Saturdays.

The bank made the pledge yesterday as it unveiled a list of commitments to customers and staff. The bank also plans to begin texting customers to help them reduce current account charges and to "do everything" to ensure customers wait less than five minutes in branches. The bank will begin Saturday openings in cities and towns.

"Through extensive research carried out by the bank, we've listened to thousands of consumers, taken on board their suggestions and responded with these commitments which we hope will begin to address many banking concerns," said bank official Mike Bamber. "We are doing this because we recognise that banks need to change and we want to put the priorities of our customers at the heart of what we do."

The pledge not to close any more branches follows the bank's decision to shut First Active, the Ulster Bank-owned building society last year, changes to staff pensions and the 1,000 job cuts from a staff of 6,000 in the Republic and Northern Ireland.

The bank's progress in meeting the customer commitments will be checked by auditors Deloitte.

Other pledges made yesterday are more mundane and include promises that staff will be "helpful and knowledgeable", implement a system that makes it easier to open an account, plans to help people in debt, clear communication, more automatic teller machines and free financial information.

The Irish Times reports that the first major step in the break-up of Fás as it was formerly organised is to take place on the first of next month, staff at the training authority have been told.

The new director general of the authority, Paul O’Toole has informed them that responsibility for policy and budgets in the employment and community services areas are to be transferred to Éamon Ó Cuív’s Department of Social Protection on October 1st.

The move means that approximately 40 per cent of Fás staff will move to Mr Ó Cuív’s department while the remainder will “in effect move to a revised form of skills organisation”.

Approximately half of the Fás budget will move from the Department of Education and Skills to Mr Ó Cuív’s department. Responsibility for Fás was moved from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to the Department of Education and Skills on May 1st last. The Tánaiste, Mary Coughlan made a similar move in March of this year in the Cabinet reshuffle.

The change next month means the public offices of Fás and the community enterprise aspect of its operations begin the process of transferral to Mr Ó Cuív’s department.

“Operational responsibility for these functions will not be transferred until further legislation is enacted,” Mr O’Toole said in a note to staff. “Pending this, we will agree a service level agreement with to set out how the interim arrangements will work in practice.”

He said the new piece of legislation is expected by the end of the year. Staff members who moved to the Department of Social Protection will be re-designated as civil servants. “It is not expected that staff will transfer until the second quarter of 2011,” he said in the staff note. According to one source in the training authority, the remaining element of Fás, which will be responsible for training and apprenticeship activities, may have to tender for its budget each year in competition with such organisations as the institutes of technology and the VECs.

The leader of Siptu, Jack O’Connor, has said he does not agree with the view of the Labour Party’s Ruairí Quinn, that Fás should be shut down and its training budget transferred to educational institutions such as the institutes of technology.

He said he understood Mr Quinn’s frustration but said the State training authority could be reformed. There was a need for an organisation such as Fás that oversaw skills and training policy.

“A wide variety of skills were needed for a sustainable economy,” he said on RTÉ radio’s This Week programme. “We can’t build an economy exclusively on people who have third-level education.”

He said it was important “not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

Meanwhile, an attempt by Fás to introduce new procurement procedure controls has run into difficulties.

Managers at the authority were asked by Mr O’Toole to sign new procurement compliance certificates in which they would confirm they had exercised due diligence over procurement transactions in their areas of responsibility.

Siptu branch organiser Brendan O’Brien has written to the affected staff saying there were serious concerns about the implications of signing the documents.

The union has issued a branch directive to the effect that the new documents would not be signed, and has advised senior Fás management of this.

Last week, it emerged that difficulties identified during a European audit of Fás expenditures has led to a cessation of European Social Fund payments pending the resolution of the audit shortcomings.

The Irish Times also reports that Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan will today meet European Union competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia in Brussels to discuss the €25 billion rescue of Anglo Irish Bank.

Mr Lenihan will be in Brussels for the regular meeting of EU finance ministers. The Government is hoping for a swift conclusion to the commission’s review of the controversial plan to divide Anglo into “good” and “bad” banks.

Green Party chairman Senator Dan Boyle said he expected a decision within three weeks. Speaking at the weekend, Mr Boyle said: “It has to wind down in a way that is longer than the immediate term but shorter than 10 years . . .We should have a decision in two to three weeks.”

The Department of Finance declined to comment ahead of the meeting. Fine Gael finance spokesman Michael Noonan said he did not think anything “concrete” would come out of the discussions today.

“Both Anglo Irish Bank and the Department of Finance are keeping their cards close to their chest . . .”

He said the decision should be taken as quickly as possible, with as “accurate a figure as possible to be given to the Irish taxpayer”.

Labour Party spokeswoman on finance Joan Burton said Mr Lenihan had been “far from frank, particularly with the Opposition, about what his proposals are”.

Ms Burton said the Government had been way behind the curve in relation to the strategy it had adopted towards Anglo Irish Bank.

“I do hope that Brian Lenihan will go to Mr Almunia with a greater sense of realism about where Anglo has the country. I hope Mr Lenihan’s focus is on restoring the country’s reputation and trying to limit damage.”

Meanwhile, Labour MEP for Ireland South Alan Kelly said he was meeting Mr Almunia tomorrow. Mr Kelly said he would be urging Mr Almunia “to bring a halt to Irelands madness”.

Mr Kelly added: “To date the commission has heard the views of Anglo Irish and the Minister for Finance. I intend to represent the views of the ordinary people of Ireland, the people whose taxes are being used to bailout Anglo, yet who cannot access credit to pay their bills or keep their small businesses above water.”

He said he would tell Mr Almunia that the information provided by the bank and the Government could not be trusted.

The Irish Examiner reports that a massive €4.5 million was paid out to SIPTU and ICTU from the misspent Fás training package which has caused the European Commission to withhold €57m in social funding.

However, the main union involved has said the benefits it received from this training fund, the Competency Development Programme (CDP), had nothing to do with its vociferous defence of the continued existence of Fás after news of Europe’s actions broke.

At the weekend Jack O’Connor, president of SIPTU and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said Ruairí Quinn of the Labour Party was "completely wrong in his call for closing down Fás".

Mr Quinn had made his comments after the Department of Education confirmed the last round of European social funding (2000-2006) worth €57m had been withheld and the next tranche (2007-2013), worth €211m is frozen, pending an audit of how Fás spent the money.

A major part of this was the CDP, which was focused on programmes for workers who wanted to up-skill.

The commission has already said Ireland had "serious questions to answer" in how Fás paid out money to a multitude of private companies to provide training.

Since 2004 SIPTU College received €2.06m from Fás under the CDP. ICTU was paid €2.46m. In 2008 alone SIPTU College was paid €862,644 and ICTU received €1,338,064.

These figures werepublished by website The Story.ie.

A spokesman for Mr O’Connor said the SIPTU president was speaking about the employment position generally and the European audit was not something on which SIPTU would comment.

On Friday a statement from this spokesman said that "rowing in with the populist demonisation of Fás is a poor substitute for visionary and innovative policy-making in response to the most serious economic and social challenge this society has faced for many decades".

Yesterday, Mr O’Connor spoke on RTÉ’s This Week programme and pulled back from his initial assertion. He said while he believed Fás should remain in place, his comments on Mr Quinn’s position were based on the need to channel resources to create employment.

"There are problems with Fás and there are problems that are capable of being overcome and that are being overcome," he said.

An internal audit of how the CDP was spent is due to be presented to the board of Fás this week. This audit is understood to say that up to 15% of programmes that received money under the CDP should not be put forward for European Social Fund claims.

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