Government kowtowing to bankers on perks unfair to taxpayers

BANKERS have spent a good portion of the last couple of years trying to convince a jaded populace that they have seen the error of their avaricious ways, but their recent conduct belies any feeble attempts at faux humility.

Last week we learned that AIB, the toxic bank into which the State has already pumped €20.7bn, performed a quiet accounting trick in August so that it could keep its former brass in the six-figure style to which they had become accustomed.

The bank transferred €1.1bn of assets from its balance sheet, assets that, for all intents and purposes are public because of the bank’s nationalised status, to a private pension fund where they will be used to pay, among others, former CEO Eugene Sheehy approx €500,000 a year.