At IL&P, Bowler is first woman to chair Irish plc

Ms Gillian Bowler will become the first woman to chair an Irish public limited company (plc) when she takes over the helm of the State's largest mortgage lender, Irish Life & Permanent (IL&P), early next month.

The company announced Ms Bowler's appointment to shareholders at its annual general meeting (a.g.m.) in Dublin, yesterday.

She will succeed Mr Roy Douglas, who will step down after four years on June 3rd next, his 60th birthday.

Ms Bowler said the bank's immediate focus would be on its strategy of becoming the State's biggest provider of retail financial services.

"In the last five years, we have seen a shake-up of the banking industry and now we are getting down to the nuts and bolts of running the business," she said, adding that customer service would be a central part of that process.

Ms Bowler also acknowledged that the banking industry's reputation had been damaged by recent scandals and that it would have to deal with that.

Asked if IL&P's home lending arm, Permanent TSB, ran the same risk as AIB (which most recently admitted it charged 570 top-up mortgage customers for payment protection without asking them), Ms Bowler said she was confident that it did not.

She pointed out that the bank's mortgage customers applied separately for payment protection, and had 30 days to opt out of the contract.

Chief executive Mr David Went said it was the bank's policy to refund immediately any customers who suffer financially if the bank makes a mistake.

"If a mistake is discovered, the person who discovers this has to pass it up the line immediately and it is rectified and the customer is refunded," he said.

Ms Bowler is a well-known figure in Irish business. She founded travel agent Budget Travel in the 1970s, selling it in 1996 to multinational TUI. She still chairs Budget Travel and is also chairwoman of Fáilte Ireland, the all-island tourism development body.

She has been a non-executive director of Irish Life & Permanent for five years and serves in the same role on the boards of a number of other Irish companies.

Addressing the a.g.m., Mr Went said the group was enjoying good growth across its principal businesses.

He added that IL&P was forecasting house price growth of 8 to 9 per cent this year, which he described as a "welcome out-turn" in comparison to the stronger increases of recent years.

In the course of the meeting, a woman representing a small number of widows who lost out on free Irish Permanent shares through a technicality when it floated 10 years ago criticised the bank for ignoring the group while donating cash to yesterday's "People in Need" fundraiser.