DUBLIN, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Nationalised Anglo Irish Bank[ANGIB.UL] will be "decommissioned", with a decision on its fateexpected within a few weeks, a junior government minister wasquoted on Saturday as saying.

The comments by Conor Lenihan, a minister of state in chargeof science, technology, innovation and natural resources, wasthe latest signal from the government that it was about to bow togrowing political pressure to shut down the lender.

"It has to be decommissioned, it will be decommissioned --fairly swiftly in terms of the actual decision being made in afew weeks with the permission of Europe," Conor Lenihan, who isthe brother and ruling party colleague of Finance Minister BrianLenihan, told the Irish Independent newspaper.

Investors see the escalating cost of rescuing Anglo Irish asa major threat to Ireland's creditworthiness and the nextpotential euro zone troublespot after Greece. [ID:nLDE67T1PA]

European Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, who willhave the final say on Anglo's fate, said he would meet BrianLenihan in the coming days to discuss the matter.

"There should be burden-sharing and without putting too muchdebt on Irish taxpayers," Almunia told a news conference inItaly.

Anglo's new management has proposed carving out a smallfunctioning bank via a "good bank/bad bank" split but ministershave signalled a shift in policy towards an eventual wind-down.

The government -- with a wafer-thin parliamentary majority-- will be hard-pressed to ignore public opinion, already aghastat having to shell out 25 billion euros for the bank's recklessproperty lending while facing yet another round of tax hikes andspending cuts in this December's budget.

Prime Minister Brian Cowen said on Friday that a swift windup could cost 70 billion euros or more and would not be in thetaxpayers' interest. [ID:nLDE68215P]

"There has to be an orderly wind-down," Conor Lenihan said."But it would be costly and dangerous to wind it down quickly."

(For an analysis on Anglo Irish's possible fate and theimpact on Ireland please see: [ID:nLDE682075]) (Reporting by Andras Gergely and Nigel Tutt, editing by MikePeacock)