Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am not in the habit of being nice to banks given the role they played in the pretty awful situation the country has found itself in. However, I acknowledge Mr. Duffy's office and AIB on the issue of cases that I brought to their attention.

I wish to give some credit to the comments made by Mr. O'Connor that AIB seems to take a more reasonable approach to people in mortgage arrears which I put down to the fact that it is 100% owned by the State. Mr. Duffy has more or less acknowledged, in his statement, that because the bank's shareholder is the Government it is under more pressure to be a bit reasonable about these things in a way that some of the other banks that have come in here have not been. I am sure they are very nice people too but that is not the point. Certain other banks that have come in here have a very different attitude. They do not give a damn what we or the Government thinks about priorities, dealing with distressed mortgage holders, rates and such like. I welcome that fact.

I am worried about influences on the bank. Mr. Duffy said in his opening statement, in a number of different ways, that the other influences on the bank is "the need to generate sustainable and viable returns for shareholders" and, to use a particular phrase, "to create an investable model so that over time the bank can start to return capital to the State". That is a euphemism for privatisation. Am I correct? We are talking about creating a model where the State disposes of its holdings in AIB which are sold off to private interests. Is that the case?