Doherty pay-off 'a hammer blow to ordinary banking staff'
Staff in AIB and other domestic banks are shocked and angry that the former Chief Executive of AIB received total payments of more than €3m last year on his premature departure from the bank.
IBOA General Secretary, Larry Broderick said: "The excessive rewards which continue to be paid to those at the top of the banking sector for leading these institutions to the verge of bankruptcy beggars belief.
Former AIB Chief Executive, Colm Doherty, stepped down from his top post in November, after less than a year in the role.
He was awarded a €3m golden handshake despite the struggling bank needing State aid of almost €20bn.
"The justification for these payments is that they are contractual entitlements which must be honoured. Thousands of our members also have contractual entitlements to pay awards which are far more modest in nature. But the bank has steadfastly refused to honour these contractual awards.
"In AIB’s call centres in Swords, Naas and Belfast, staff were deprived of their contractual entitlements just before Christmas. These staff who are on low pay rates are extremely angry at today’s revelation.
"The injustice in this situation is compounded by the fact that this revelation comes just one week after Mr O’Doherty’s successor announced his intention to make over 2,000 staff redundant.
"Restructuring is not only about the number of staff leaving the bank; it is also about ensuring that the morale of the staff who will remain is maintained so that they can give of their best to promote the recovery of the business.
"Every revelation of this culture of excess at the top is a hammer blow to ordinary banking staff. That is why when we meet the Minister for Finance shortly, we will be pointing out that it is not enough to restructure the financial sector at the institutional level, we also need a radical transformation of the culture of banking so that in future awards are given for behaviour which underpins prudential values and customer service rather than the current situation where recklessness is incentivised and failure rewarded."
