Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yet here we are giving bonuses to top management to get a return for the money that we as the ordinary taxpayers have put into AIB. It is based around profitability and the return of capital. The ordinary person is going to look back and ask whether anything has changed. People are going to question that. Mr. Bourke does not particularly wish to speak about Redwood but we have many SMEs, in particular farmers, petrified about what is going to happen when their loans are sold on. It seems a very strange move by AIB in the current environment. It reeks of elitism to the ordinary person and it is very hard to explain. It might be different, were AIB a private bank with no State involvement, but it is virtually 100% owned by the State. I am trying to reconcile it and to understand why. Why did the remuneration committee and the board of AIB take this step, which they must have known would meet with a public backlash?