The banks broke the country. It’s a bit rich allowing them into schools

TURN on the radio or pick up a newspaper and you might just notice that there is an inquiry tasked with finding out why this State was nearly destroyed by its banks. It is in this context that I ask the question: why are Bank of Ireland (BOI) and Allied Irish Bank (AIB) running banks in our schools?

I am not making this up. Many secondary schools have ‘school banks’ on their premises. These are run by students under the supervision of the bank. There were 180 AIB school banks set up this year. BOI partners with as many as 400 secondary schools and set up its first school bank in 2011.

The Bank of Ireland model has six students, who are ‘interviewed’ by the bank to become its staff in the school. So you have the classic Moonie-style trick of getting a community to recruit from within itself.