To quote Brian Goggin at the banking inquiry: “The day and night of September 29 (2008) was the worst day of my life.” I wouldn’t mind having the worst day of my life and still make €17,021.27 for the day.

Bank of Ireland officials knew the bank might need taxpayer help as early as June 2008 to weather “a storm” descending on the financial sector.

Anglo Irish Bank asked Bank of Ireland to take it over while the Central Bank also asked BoI to consider buying Irish Life and Permanent in the hours before the September 2008 bank guarantee.

More than €12.2bn in junior bondholder debt was only included in the 2008 bank guarantee because Bank of Ireland insisted it would damage the economy if it was left unprotected.

The chief executive of AIB when the recession hit has said his €2.4m total annual pay package during the era was peer-reviewed and he never asked for a pay rise.

Dáil officials are set to ramp up security surrounding the ongoing banking inquiry due to the sensitive and “confidential” nature of the documents it is examining.

The head of the Banking Inquiry Ciaran Lynch says he does not anticipate any resistance to compellability orders sent to more than a dozen senior witnesses.

More than a dozen of Ireland’s most senior bankers during the boom and bust era — including one of the pioneers of 100% mortgages in this country — have been legally ordered to attend banking inquiry grillings from April.

Last Saturday, Nov 24, over 20,000 people turned up to a magnificent pre-budget anti-austerity demonstration in Dublin.

The revelations this week of what the top brass at banks get in their pensions sparked outrage. But the banks should not be swayed by public anger into pursuing former executives for recovery of funds lost, writes Kyran Fitzgerald

It is believed that Bank of Ireland will not be following AIB’s lead and writing to former executives asking them to surrender part of their pensions.

The weather gods were not shining for the final series of races of the Kinsale YC Spring Series.

In contrast to last week’s bruising battle, a dying, shifting breeze, pleasant sunshine and shortened courses were the order of the day for competitors in the North Sails-sponsored third week of the Kinsale Yacht Club Spring Series.

Former Green Party senator Dan Boyle has said questions need to be answered about the signing of the bank guarantee in 2008.

Bank of Ireland paid chief executive Richie Boucher a gross salary of €690,000 last year, with additional benefits — including a €174,000 pension contribution — bringing his total remuneration package to €831,000.

LAST Sunday at Crosshaven more than 70 boats participated in the Autumn Series, Whitesail 1 and Whitesail 2 together with Classes 3 and 4 raced in the harbour.

DERMOT McCARTHY is around long enough to know that this week’s controversy about the extraordinary pension and pay-off he received in July will pass.

A FULL RANGE of sailing conditions on Cork Harbour delivered a complete test to the combined fleet of more than 60 boats for the annual Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) national championships that ended yesterday.

FORMER Bank of Ireland chief executive Brian Goggin refused to be drawn into the controversy over who said what to the Government on the fateful night of September 29, 2008, when the bank guarantee was introduced to prevent a run on the Irish banks.

ANGLO Irish Bank chiefs made a desperate plea to Bank of Ireland to take it over on the same day the Government was holding crisis talks on the introduction of the blanket guarantee to protect the banking sector.

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.

IT is difficult to reconcile the great bile-fest generated by Máire Geoghegan-Quinn’s pension with the rabbits-in-the-headlights acceptance that we can do nothing to claw back some of the truly incredible retirement packages enjoyed by those whose fingerprints are all over the corpse of Ireland’s economy.

Dublin: AIB and Bank of Ireland warned the Government that the price banks could have to pay to use the state’s guarantee may be so big it would run the risk of “destabilising the entire bank system”.

THE Government is finding out that owning just 25% of a major commercial entity confers very little benefit but an awful lot of hassle.

BANK of Ireland, thought to be the most vulnerable of the two big Irish banks, will transfer €16 billion in bad property and other related loans to NAMA under the plans outlined yesterday by Finance Minister Brian Lenihan.

ALTHOUGH his basic salary was cut, former Bank of Ireland chief executive Brian Goggin, who resigned from the company in February, still saw his overall remuneration package rise during the bank’s last financial year.

BRIAN LENIHAN last night insisted the Government was not planning to wind-down scandal-hit nationalised bank Anglo Irish.

BAD debt provisions of €1.4 billion has plunged Bank of Ireland into a loss of €7 million against profits of €1.9bn a year earlier.

More than 12,000 home-owners who have mortgages with Bank of Ireland are in negative equity, it was revealed today.

The chairman of Bank of Ireland is to stand down in July over the lender’s losses, it was revealed today.

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.

THE arbitrary remuneration limit of €500,000 on the top job at AIB will make it very difficult for the group to attract somebody from outside the bank, according to Oliver Gilvarry, head of research at Dolmen Securities.

THE reality of the banking crisis took on a very human face at Bank of Ireland’s extraordinary general meeting held in the Savoy Cinema in Dublin yesterday.

An offer by Bank of Ireland’s directors to resign and seek re-election at their annual meeting in July was today dismissed as a charade.

Bank chiefs will have their wages capped at half a million euro, it was announced today.

BANK of Scotland (Ireland) has, as expected, reported a sobering set of annual results for 2008 — with a pre-tax loss of €250 million replacing a profit of €272m from the previous year.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan says he is satisfied that the recruitment process for the new head of Bank of Ireland was transparent and proper.

THE new chief executive of Bank of Ireland Richie Boucher has vowed torebuild a strong bank to play a very significant role in the economy.

Richie Boucher has been announced as the new group chief executive of Bank of Ireland.

FOLLOWING an emergency board meeting yesterday Irish Nationwide (INBS) said it regretted the decision of Dr Michael Walsh to quit as company chairman.

THE €2.9 million-a-year chief executive of the Bank of Ireland (BoI), Brian Goggin, will leave his position within three weeks.

IF Bank of Ireland chief executive Brian Goggin took a pay cut of 99% he would still make more than the average industrial wage of e28,000 per year and almost twice as much as the minimum paid worker who makes e8.65 per hour.

BANK of Ireland chief executive Brian Goggin’s televised admission that he would still earn close to €2 million this year was a “PR disaster” which sent out all the wrong signals, Green leader John Gormley has said.