Reaction: The Taoiseach has expressed confidence in the ability of AIB chief executive Mr Michael Buckley to lead the bank into the future and make the changes needed to protect the Irish financial services industry.
Mr Ahern said yesterday it was vital that quick action be taken to protect the reputation of Ireland's banking and financial services sector. "We need good people to get it right and I'm sure Mr Buckley and his team are the people who can put it right and I wish them well in doing it."
He told reporters that Mr Buckley, who is under increasing pressure following the series of revelations about practices at the bank, has been "a hard-working public servant and banker over the years, so I have nothing against him or any of the others".
The revelations were "upsetting and disturbing. You would expect that they should not happen. I think it is crucially important for the banking sector in this country that, whatever went on in the past and whatever might be going on... the management of the banks... can quickly deal with these issues and can effectively put anything that is necessary right.
"The difficulty for us is that this could damage the status of the Irish financial industry. It hasn't to date, it shouldn't, but we have to get it right, get it right quickly and then move on."
Meanwhile the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, said the Garda should be called in if there were criminal matters involved. She also said that the cost of any inquiries arising from recent revelations should not be paid for by the bank's shareholders or the taxpayer. "The people responsible have to pay the cost of any inquiries," she said.
She, like the Taoiseach, said she was very impressed with what AIB chairman Mr Dermot Gleeson was saying and what he said he would do.
"I think he is determined to ensure that, during his period as chairman of Allied Irish Banks, none of these matters will ever be tolerated again and that has to be the norm."
Meanwhile, Fine Gael's finance spokesman, Mr Richard Bruton, last night called on the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority (IFSRA) to undertake a "probity audit of the systems in place in AIB".
"The public requires assurance that the malpractices of the past cannot now re-occur. Crucially, we must have a statement from IFSRA in place assuring us that the necessary internal procedures are operating within AIB that enforce a rigorous compliance programme."
Labour Party leader Mr Pat Rabbitte called on the Taoiseach and Tánaiste to match their "fine words" with "effective action... to ensure that a small group of people who appear to have used one of the country's most powerful financial institutions to engage in tax fraud are dealt with in an appropriate manner."
Prof Niamh Brennan, the academic director of the Institute of Directors' Centre for Corporate Governance at UCD, yesterday called for greater accountability for corporate misdeeds.
"The standard of accountability has to be at the individual level," she told RTÉ's News at One.
"If you do something wrong your head must roll," she said.
Referring to her approach to corporate governance, she said: "One beetle, maybe one cockroach, recognises another and, if you are fishing from a narrow pool, those cockroaches have an unerring instinct to come together and, when they come together, no rules, no regulations, no IFSRA can deal with their bad, greedy, self-serving behaviour."
