Bank of Ireland's group chief executive, Mr Maurice Keane, said last night he was not concerned for his own position, despite the collapse of the merger talks with Alliance & Leicester. Speaking on RTE radio, he said his management team's judgment was "pretty soundly based".

Asked if he was disappointed, he said: "It is disappointing that we were not able to reach mutually satisfactory arrangements, but the deal would have made sense for us only on arrangements that were acceptable to us.

"What we did say in the holding statement which was brought about as a consequence of a leak (of talks on the merger in the Financial Times on May 22nd), which wasn't of our making, and extensive briefing of the British media, which wasn't of our doing, was that we were in an advanced stage of negotiations. They weren't finished at that time. There were various points to be concluded, and we haven't been able to conclude those," he added.

He claimed the leaks to the press "probably led to a stage where people were much more suspicious" during the negotiations.

But he would not comment on the structure of the failed deal, insisting the talks were conducted under a confidentiality agreement, which he intended "to honour in full".

Reacting to the sharp rise in the Bank of Ireland share price on news of the abandoned merger, Mr Keane said: "I suppose they are happier that we were not prepared to do the deal on arrangements that were not acceptable to us, but I am glad the share price is up."

Asked about whether the bank was now a takeover target, he replied: "The fact that the price has fallen isn't a help, though I think that we are not out of line with the other financial stocks. Our view of takeover has always been that we will run the bank as best we can. We would hope that, on the back of that, there will be a strong share price, and that is the best deterrent to takeover."