BoI chairman backs board after shareholder criticism

BANK of Ireland chairman Pat Molloy has strongly defended the company’s board of directors in the face of shareholder criticism but has admitted to bad management practices by the company’s former leadership.

Addressing shareholders at the bank’s extraordinary general meeting at UCD yesterday, Mr Molloy – BoI’s former chief executive, who returned as chairman last year – said that the bank, as well as other Irish banks, had taken “an overly optimistic view” of the country’s future economic prospects.

He said the bank had entered the recession “over-leveraged, with too much reliance on international wholesale funding and were over-exposed to the property markets”.