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AIB’s terrific art collection of art should be handed over to the people of Ireland as a very small and very humble gesture of apology for the bank’s fecklessness, writes FINTAN O'TOOLE

SINCE WE are impoverishing ourselves, our children and perhaps our grandchildren to bail out the bankers, we may as well get something back. In the case of Allied Irish Bank, which has behaved with contempt for the law and the public for decades, one of the things we should take back is its terrific collection of Irish art. AIB has what is surely the finest collection of 20th century Irish painting in private hands, and one that in some respects rivals the holdings of public institutions. We’ve already paid for it many times over, so we should at least be able to enjoy it.