AIB shareholders: Board 'should be replaced by Mickey Mouse'

One of Ireland’s top bankers was pelted with eggs today as hundreds of angry shareholders attended a meeting.

Dermot Gleeson, chairman of Allied Irish Bank, ducked to avoid the missiles just moments after addressing an emergency general meeting at its banking centre in Dublin.

Pensioner Gary Keogh, who was removed from the building, said he was extremely angry after losing his pension in the economic downturn.

“The whole board should be replaced by Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck,” he said.

“We should go to Disneyland and Paris.”

Mr Keogh, 66, from Blackrock in south Dublin, said he felt compelled to throw the eggs after Mr Gleeson tried to speak over another shareholder.

Mr Keogh said: “For the last number of years we have been told to put our money into the banks – now we have no pensions.

“I have no pension. My pension now is wiped out because of AIB. I cannot sell the shares because they are useless.

“I will be here next year if I can’t sell my shares at a reasonable price.”

Mr Keogh, an investor in AIB for 20 years, said that, although he enjoyed some good times as a shareholder, he had not enjoyed it as much as this morning.

He admitted he came to the EGM armed with the eggs and would have done the same at the Bank of Ireland shareholders’ meeting had he been invited.

Hundreds of angry shareholders packed Allied's banking centre for the EGM, where they will later vote to ratify the Government's €3.5bn recapitalisation plan.

Mr Gleeson, who is due to stand down in July after six years at the helm, told investors he was acutely aware of their anger and disappointment, and of the individual hardships brought by the fall in the bank’s share price and the temporary cessation of dividend payments.

He said that, with hindsight, he regretted some of the lending decisions which were made, particularly in relation to property development in Ireland.

Mr Keogh said he could not stand the lies from the bank which, he claimed, have been going on the last two years.

He said he threw the eggs when Mr Gleeson told another shareholder to sit down.

“How dare he?” said Mr Keogh.

“At the end of the day, we are paying his wages, and he is going to leave this bank and he is going to be paid.

“We are not going to be paid.”

After being forced out of the EGM in Ballsbridge, an angry Mr Keogh added: "If we didn't live in a tolerant society, the chairman and the rest of the board would be hanging by their necks with piano wire out on the road.''

Meanwhile, inside, a clearly unsettled Mr Gleeson stood in front of a blue AIB logo spattered with egg and continued to take questions from shareholders.

At the end of last month three top AIB executives announced plans to step down.

Mr Gleeson will be succeeded by Dan O’Connor, who joined the AIB board in 2007.

Chief executive Eugene Sheehy is also stepping down but will continue in his role until his successor is appointed in coming months.

A new position of deputy chairman will be filled by board member David Prichard on May 14. Group finance director John O’Donnell also announced that he is to retire in August.

The EGM is set to run until the recapitalisation plan is decided and AIB bosses have also planned to hold an AGM when the first meeting ends.