In June, we asked the Minister for Finance whether he agreed that the decision by AIB to conduct a fire sale of its Northern Ireland division, First Trust, was a bad partitionist policy and whether, considering that the Irish people now own AIB, the Government should do something about it. The Minister's answer was entirely unsatisfactory as essentially said he to go ahead and sell it off with absolutely no regard for the arising job losses. In addition to being short term in thinking, this decision is not in the long-term best interests of AIB, which the State now owns, as it risks becoming dwarfed by its all-Ireland rivals, namely, Bank of Ireland and Ulster Bank.

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