Dublin - Irish President Mary McAleese eas due to sign into law Thursday afternoon a bill that would guarantee all deposits and borrowings for the six Irish-owned banks for the next two years, national broadcaster RTE reported.

Under the plans, the six banks - Allied Irish Bank, the Bank of Ireland, the Anglo Irish Bank, Irish Life & Permanent, the Irish Nationwide Building Society and the Educational Building Society - are to be provided a 400-billion-euro (560-billion-dollar) guarantee.

There was some doubt about foreign-owned banks, notably the Ulster Bank, which was mentioned specifically by Finance Minister Brian Lenihan during the parliamentary debate on the bill.

Lenihan said the government would consider applications to join the bail-out scheme from foreign banks that had "a significant retial presence" in Ireland, RTE reported.

Both houses of the Irish parliament debated through the night to get the bill passed.

The lower house, or Dail, approved it by 124 votes to 18 around 2 am Thursday, with the Labour Party opposing it.

The upper house, or Seanad, met at 2:30 and finally passed the bill by 7:40 am by 39 votes to 5 with an amendment that any deal to support a financial institution would have to be passed by both houses.

The Irish government made the decision to bring in the protective legislation on Monday.

It was broadly welcomed and sent Irish stocks soaring, but there were grumblings from Brussels that it might not be in line with European Union rules.

The European Commission was in contact with the Irish authorities but had not yet been given full details of the plan, a spokesman for the commission said Thursday.

Without notification, there could be no "legal certainty" about the plan, he said. (dpa)