'No special deals for special individuals coming to AIB', committee told 

AIB's Jim O'Keeffe arrives for a Finance, Public Expenditure & Reform & Taoiseach Committee meeting at Leinster House. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos

AIB has insisted it does not have a "special process for the top 1%" when it comes to debt writedowns.

Officials of the bank told the Oireachtas Finance Committee on Thursday it had given 90% debt writedowns to nearly 2,000 people, just 1% of all of the people who had been offered solutions by the bank.

The bank's appearance at the Oireachtas finance committee comes in the wake of the agreement reached with former Kilkenny hurler DJ Carey. It is estimated that Mr Carey’s €9.5m debt was written down by about 80% when the sale of golf resort properties and a €60,000 settlement are taken into account.

News of his writedown led to politicians demanding answers from the majority-state owned bank and to AIB's Head of Retail Jim O'Keeffe telling staff that “all appropriate avenues” to recover debts are exhausted before any debt writedown.

Asked by Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty if there is a policy specifically for the “top 1%", Mr O'Keeffe said that the bank treats all customers the same.

"We deal with every case consistently and fairly. We have a governing set of policies that are reviewed internally, right up to the board.

“I can categorically tell you that there are no special deals for special individuals coming to AIB."

Mr O'Keeffe told Mr Doherty that the bank makes deals based on affordability and that there are "robust criteria" for any deal.

“It is not the old world of somebody landing into the bank and saying ‘I am here I owe you x and I am going to cut a deal and we are going to halve it'.

"That is not how we operate.” 

He later told Aontú TD Peadar Toibín that he would dismiss the idea that the 1% of borrowers who received the largest writedowns were "a particular cohort" of people.

Solidarity TD Mick Barry told the committee that there is a public suspicion that "there's a rule for the rich and famous and one for the rest of us". 

If there is consistency, it is still a bias against normal people, he said, citing an adage that "if you owe the bank €5,000, you've got a problem but if you owe €5m, the bank has a problem".

"Even though everything is being done by the book, the little guy has a bigger problem," he said.