10 pre-crisis directors remain on bank boards
Finance Minister Michael Noonan is refusing to reveal which of the directors remain in place but said there are four each in Bank of Ireland and EBS and two in Irish Life and Permanent.
Mr Noonan said all board members will have to undergo “assessment against the new fitness and probity standards for such appointments” by the start of next month, if they want to stay on in the banks beyond January 2012.
“As part of the Programme for Government, we committed to restructuring bank boards and to replacing all directors who presided over the failed lending practices in the period to September 2008,” he said in response to a Dáil question.
“Subsequent to this month’s AGM of AIB and consequent on the recent mergers involving EBS and Irish Nationwide Building Society only 10 pre-crisis directors will still be in post — a reduction of almost 90%. I do not propose to name the individuals here.”
He added that “board and management renewal plans for the affected institutions are under consideration”.
When the first major bank bailout was announced in February 2009, the then finance minister, Brian Lenihan, promised an “extensive clean out” of those in charge of running the banks.
Eighteen months later, the Irish Examiner reported that two-thirds of the 44 non-executive board members were still in place at the banks, suggesting little change at the top.
Mr Noonan said: “Of the above 10, four will be in office at Bank of Ireland, a further four at EBS Ltd — which will operate as a standalone, separately-branded subsidiary of AIB, with its own branch network — and the remaining two at Irish Life and Permanent.”
He told Fianna Fáil’s Michael McGrath: “Six of these individuals hold executive positions with the remaining four occupying non-executive roles. Of the remaining institutions no pre-crisis directors are still in post.”
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