The Irish Central Bank said on Thursday that four of the country's most important banks could need up to a total of €24bn in new capital to stay viable.

The figure reflects the maximum that the Irish central bank thinks will be needed for the core tier 1 capital ratio of the country's most important lenders to stay above 6% of risk-weighted assets through 2013, under the most pessimistic scenario in a new round of stress tests, and to stay above 10.5% in a "baseline" scenario.