The Jobs Minister has refused to say if he now regrets the decision of Fine Gael to support the bank guarantee in the Dáil vote in 2008.

Richard Bruton was Fine Gael's finance spokesperson when the party decided to support the guarantee in September 2008.

Mr Bruton says he won't express any view until the inquiry is completed, although he appeared to hint that the guarantee may have been necessary.

“The bank guarantee, as you know, was a decision that was taken at that stage based on advice that was coming forward,” he said.

“One thing we had to do was protect people whose deposits were in banks.

“You’ve seen countries where deposits were sacrificed and that has had huge knock-on impact.”

Bruton’s comments follow the evidence of the Central Bank Governor to the Banking Inquiry yesterday.

Patrick Honohan said the decision to guarantee all bondholders was a mistake and the Government should have pulled the plug on the former Anglo Irish Bank that night.

“We felt the need to protect our depositors to make sure that we could have an orderly management of our banking at a time of high crisis. Obviously the government came forward with their proposals and offered their advice. We are now looking afresh at whether that proposal they made was soundly bases, and that’s as we should,” Mr Bruton said.

“I’m not going to prejudge an inquiry that’s underway,” he said.