Allied Irish Banks has appointed Mr Jim O'Leary as a non-executive director.

Until recently, Mr O'Leary was chief economist at Davy Stockbrokers, the broking subsidiary of Bank of Ireland.

Mr O'Leary is currently a lecturer in economics at NUI Maynooth and a member of the Public Sector Benchmarking Body. He was chief economist at Davy from 1987 to 2001 and prior to that held positions at the National Economic and Social Council and the ESRI.

At one time he was an economics adviser to former Taoiseach Mr John Bruton, and is also a former director of Aer Lingus.