Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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175. To ask the Minister for Finance the number of agency staff employed by a bank (details supplied) in which the State is a majority shareholder;; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14204/20]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be aware that as Minister for Finance, I am precluded from intervening in how AIB manages its day-to-day business and staffing issues. Decisions in this regard are solely the responsibility of the board and management of the bank which must be run on an independent and commercial basis. The independence of the banks in which the State has a shareholding is protected by Relationship Frameworks which are legally binding documents that cannot be changed unilaterally. These frameworks, which are publicly available, were insisted upon by the European Commission to protect competition in the Irish market.

Notwithstanding this, the information sought by the Deputy in respect of the number of agency staff employed by AIB is not held in the Department.

Officials in my department forwarded your query to AIB and received the following response:

"AIB does not employ any agency staff, however, it does engage a number of third parties to provide resources, the level of which fluctuates based on ongoing business requirements. For commercial reasons AIB does not disclose the details of those arrangements."