AIB boss describes 'cold anger' at Rusnak

Allied Irish Bank bosses say they won't resign following the financial scandal at the bank's US subsidiary.

Chief executive Michael Buckley says any changes to the board of AIB will only be made after the completion of an investigation by Eugene Ludwig.

He confirms that no executives have offered their resignation.

He also says John Rusnak, the Allfirst trader at the heart of an alleged €791m fraud, acted in an "incredibly devious, complex and determined way."

Mr Buckley said: "My feelings towards him are cold anger. They were initially hot anger - what he has done, really, is steal away the efforts of about 31,000 people who work for AIB, and he has also stolen value from our shareholders."

He says AIB has learned lessons from its multi-million pound loss. Mr Rusnak's lawyers have insisted that he did not steal money from the bank.

He adds: "What I can say is that probably in common with most other banks throughout the world we have carried out very complex validation exercises concerning business risks and treasury controls. We are happy that this situation can never happen again.".

It's still unclear who benefited from the alleged fraud, which AIB chiefs say started in 1997.

Mr Buckley says the alleged fraud snowballed in recent years, with 55% of it carried out from 2001 onwards, 30% in 2000 and 15% from 1997-1999.

Mr Rusnak earned €1,307,749m - €163,461,521m - from 1997 until his arrest earlier this month.