AIB Appointments Slammed

The refusal of the Government to release the names of major bank creditors, who may default, treated the taxpayers who were bailing them out with contempt while the defiance of Government wishes, implicit in the recent AIB appointments, indicated government willingness to buckle before AIB obduracy.

This was stated by Marian Harkin MEP when she described as very disquieting the business as usual attitude of Government to restricting information about possible major bank defaulters under the guise of legal constraints. 

She continued:- “The Government is naive if they believe that the public will or should accept shielding of the identity of major defaulters.  In his statement in the Seanad
Minister of State Peter Power quotes legal problems as the reason for not revealing the names of major defaulters.

“Why should the taxpayer trust those who failed in their duty to protect the nation’s economy to ensure that major defaulters will bear full responsibility for their ill judged and greedy investment decisions and emerge swaggering in the future while hard pressed taxpayers struggle to survive.

“Minister Power and the views he expressed in the Seanad have no regard for the justified anger which taxpayers feel on the issue of bailing out those who are perceived as friends of the government.  The taxpayer will be pleased with those developers who clear their debts but not with those who appear to beat the system and emerge with an undisturbed quality of life at a time when taxpayers are being forced to accept a major reduction in theirs.  The Minister must produce the legal advice he has which restricts the publication of the names of eventual defaulters.  If he fails to do so it will be perceived by taxpayers that nothing has changed and that it is ‘business as usual’ within the cosy club.

"The senior AIB appointments represent further contempt of the public by a rescued institution which has refused to acknowledge the wishes of the government to have outside appointments. Add to this the proposal that the new managing director of AIB will have a salary of €633,000 per annum in defiance of the €500,000 limit for the top bankers as set by the Minister for Finance and we see business as usual at the banks and a government that is willing to capitulate”, Marian Harkin MEP concluded.