Top executive admits bank could have done better

WELL over 99% of stakeholders in ravaged Allied Irish Bank voted to accept the Government’s €3.5 billion bailout of the bank at the group’s stormy extraordinary general meeting in Dublin.

It was a time for mea culpas with both the chairman Dermot Gleeson and outgoing chief executive Eugene Sheehy accepting responsibility for the mess the bank now finds itself in.

Two days ago in a trading update it said it expected bad debts of €4.3 billion, well above the earlier figure indicated in March of €4bn, in what it then said would be a worst case scenario.