The only chief still in place in wake of bank crisis steps down from IL&P

GILLIAN Bowler is to step down as chairwoman and a director of Irish Life & Permanent in the new year after a successor is appointed. She is the last of the bank chairmen to resign in the wake of the 2008 banking crisis.

Ms Bowler faced strong pressure to go last year when it emerged IL&P had made a controversial loan of €8 billion in late September 2008 that allowed the disgraced Anglo Irish Bank to falsify its balance sheet for that financial year.

At last year’s stormy AGM she refused calls from shareholders to step down over the Anglo debacle.