Tape recording of senior Anglo managers suggest they knew bailout figures were underestimate

A series of tape recordings from Anglo Irish Bank’s own internal phone system reveal top executives knew the cost of bailing out the toxic bank would be higher than the figure they gave the government.
The audio of discussions between senior managers John Bowe and Peter Fitzgerald around the time of the banking collapse in 2008 has been obtained by the Irish Independent.
At the time Mr. Bowe was in talks with the Central Bank and in the recordings he speaks about requesting a 7 billion euro bailout for Anglo from the government even though negotiators knew it would not be enough.
In one excerpt,  Mr. Bowe explains the bank’s strategy of giving the government the 7 billion figure as a means of “pulling them in”.
“The strategy here is you pull them in, you get them to write a big cheque and they have to support their money, you know” Mr. Bowe said.
“They’ve got to get in the game – that’s the key” Fitzgerald commented.
“They have, and they’ve invested a lot” Bowe added.