Apologies come in many forms, but most are of the unacceptable kind

It’s not easy to come up with an apology when your apple-cheeked daughter is caught dragging naked prisoners around on a dog-leash and pointing gleefully to their exposed genitals.

Private Lynndie England's mother went for an excuse, instead.

"She was in the wrong place at the wrong time," she explained.

You could certainly say that. It makes absolutely no sense, but you could say it. In fact, saying it fits in the great tradition of apology-avoidance. Getting a free pass from the obligation to say "Sorry" is nearly as good as winning the lottery. Witnessing a good apology is nearly as rare.

Which made it particularly interesting when AIB and the Sisters of Mercy both pulled it off in recent days. AIB's performance was classic. It was fast. It was frank. It was full. It indicated a firm purpose of amendment and it promised that if it could find the people it had ripped off, it would kiss them better. Financially.

The Sisters of Mercy apology had Sr Breege O'Neill offering former residents in their institutions unqualified regret for what she acknowledged they had suffered. This apology didn't emerge as the result of any new accusations. The Mercy order had already apologised. So why, out of nowhere, did they do it again, unprovoked? Because, their statement suggested, victims may not have heard it the first time. The sisters have copped on that good communication is a reiterative process: the message rarely goes in at first delivery, especially if the recipient is distressed at the time.

Apologies need to be fast and detailed (AIB). They also need to be humble and repetitive (Mercy Sisters). They should not come with excuses attached. Unacceptable apologies nearly always come along, trailing excuses designed to let the supposed penitent off the hook.

As a device allowing the examination of the most frequent forms of unacceptable apology, let's imagine you've come to stay in my house for a week and, on one evening when I fail to provide dinner for you, you barbeque my budgie. You're now seeking forgiveness for this.

The first kind of apology to avoid is the CONDITIONAL APOLOGY. That's the one where you say "I apologise if you feel upset about your budgie loss." It looks like an apology, it sounds like an apology, but in fact, it's not a real apology at all. It takes no responsibility for doing in the bird, but instead sends the message that if I wasn't such a wimp, I wouldn't be making such a song and dance of it. In addition, it seeks to objectify the issue. Instead of you killing my budgie, which is up close, personal and takes ownership of the crime, the avian demise becomes an external happening, owned by nobody in particular.

The second most frequently trotted-out flawed apology is the COMPARATIVE version. This points out that in other countries, house-guests wouldn't stop at a budgie. In fact, this pseudo-apology suggests, in some Chinese cantons if you invite someone to stay the weekend, they're entitled to butcher your bulldog if they feel a bit peckish. The comparative version of the apology figured in President Bush's televised act of contrition for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. You will remember he directed everybody's attention to Saddam Hussein's torturers, who had done much worse and hadn't been caught or punished. True but irrelevant. I'm not going to feel better about my barbequed budgie because you compare it with pet-destruction in China.

The Iraqis are not going to warm to their guys being stripped and forced to mount each other for crude photographs because Saddam would have crippled or killed them. Apologies should refer to failure to meet one's own best standards, not to the failure to match somebody else's worst standards.

The PERCENTAGE apology happens where you want me to see this budgie incident as untypical of the wonderful person you are most of the time. So you tell me that cooking and eating the bird took only twenty minutes, which represents point nought five of your day (or whatever is the accurate figure). Therefore, goes your argument, 99.5% of the time, you're just a great guy altogether.

The PERCENTAGE apology surfaces a lot in medical controversies. If a surgeon is found to have taken the left leg off a patient who went into hospital to get their squint straightened and the hospital issues an apology, the PR people will tend to insert a paragraph establishing that 50,000 squints get straightened every year in their institution and only one or two legs get culled in the process. The problem here is that statistics of the benign routine tend not to greatly console the person who has suffered the malign exception.

The JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS apology proves that what we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. Eichmann, the Nazi functionary, used this to excuse his contribution to the horrors of the Holocaust. It didn't work. He still was executed. All it ever does is put a civil service gloss on the banality of evil: I only did it because I was told to by the Principal Officer.

The CIRCUMSTANTIAL apology is best exemplified by Ms England's mother claiming her daughter was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. You can see her point. Someone lines up a hooded naked Muslim with his private parts on display, what are you going to do, except point and pose? Sometimes, the circumstantial excuse goes historical: everyone was doing it at the time. And that's supposed to make a victim feel better?

The DEAD SPEAK apology is where you tell me you feel sure the budgie would have wanted to take away your hunger pangs. (This one is mostly used by celebs shacking up after a bereavement with what might otherwise be construed as indecent haste: it's OK, my dead partner would've wanted me to 'move on with my life'.)

The COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE apology is where you grovel for murdering my budgie, but draw my attention to the fact that my goldfish are still circling their bowl whereas you could've had them on toast as a starter.

The LEGAL ADVICE apology is the one heavily influenced by lawyers. It says that hurt which may been experienced (no specifics as to who's hurting or certainty as to the hurt itself) as the possible result of a budgie issue (no ownership of anti-budgie action) so, without prejudice, (no admission of guilt implied) regret is expressed (by nobody in particular.) This is arguably the most expensive kind of apology, frequently serving as the crucible in which the determination to sue is hardened. If you'd said a straightforward 'Sorry' over leaving me with a handful of feathers, I might accept it, but if you do a legally advised apology, I'll take you for every penny you own.

The MINIMISE THE OFFENCE is the worst of all forms of bad apology.

It effectively says it wasn't much of a budgie to start with. So get over it.

And anyway, look at all you could do with the feathers