Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)

The long-standing policy of this Government is to return the remaining banks to private ownership while achieving value for the taxpayer. It continues to be the Government's belief that banking in the main is an activity that should be provided by the private sector and that taxpayer funds which were used to rescue the banks should be recovered and used for more productive purposes. The distribution of capital is the responsibility of the board and management of the bank.

To assess this hypothetical scenario, I would need to speculate on both the level of dividends and indeed the mix of capital distribution via cash dividends or buybacks that the bank might have declared in a scenario where the State did not reduce its shareholding between 2022 and 2024. The factual position is that AIB paid ordinary dividends of €166 million, then €696 million and then €861 million in respect of the fiscal years 2022 to 2024. The total yield to the State from those dividends was €463 million.

In conjunction with the payment of ordinary dividends, AIB completed directed share buyback programmes from the State. The total yield to the State from these directed buybacks was €2.9 billion. Regarding the 2024 figure, a €500 million directed buyback was completed during the following half-year results and a further €1.2 billion following the full-year results.

To reiterate, I cannot speculate on what the board of AIB would have done as regards capital distributions over the period to which the Deputy refers, as the State's shareholding would have remained unchanged.

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