Stricken AIB pays staff gym and golf club fees

AIB is offering to pay employees’ golf club fees and leisure club memberships worth millions of euro every year despite being crippled with debt and facing massive job losses and a likely state takeover.

The crisis-ridden bank confirmed the generous staff perks scheme on the same day it raised interest rates for hard-pressed mortgage holders by half a percent – and just days after it announced record losses of €2 billion for the first half of the year. The interest rate hike will affect approximately 50,000 customers who hold standard variable mortgages.

All the bank’s 12,500 staff in the Republic and their 2,500 counterparts in Britain are entitled to avail of the scheme, which pays between half and all of their fees up to a limit of €2,500 every year.