Expecting the unexpected gives bank a way out at annual meeting

The first matter on the agenda at yesterday's AIB a.g.m. was the identification of the emergency exits. Just in case. Bankers are big into due diligence and the Allfirst debacle has left everyone at AIB on red alert. Not alone for rogue traders. But rogue shareholders too. And AIB has a few of those.

In these dark days for the institution, no one is leaving anything to chance. In the event emergency doors were used to eject a disgruntled share owner, Mr Niall Murphy, from the gathering. The fraud, he claimed, was akin to "Bubonic plague ridden harbour rats". No purchaser would touch AIB with a Millennium Spike.

The AIB chairman, Mr Lochlann Quinn, said the arguments were "fairly fatuous". But Mr Murphy is a very, very angry man who does not take kindly to the gentle chiding of AIB people. He has long used the annual meeting to air his many grievances with the State's largest bank, his former employer.

But never before had he been thrown out of the room. It took six strong men with earplugs worthy of the KGB to remove him when he tried to prevail on Lochlann Quinn to "do the decent thing" and resign. Needless to state, there was no hint of marriage in Mr Murphy's invitation to Mr Quinn to "walk down the aisle" and out of the room.

Mr Quinn wasn't in form for propositions and called for the Murphy microphone to be switched off, silencing the malcontented shareholder. That begat Mr Murphy's attempt to have a whisper in the chairman's ear while the meeting was in full flow. This was where the secret service types intervened to escort Mr Murphy from the meeting. His ejection was filmed by one of his three supporters, a woman with dreadlocks bearing a video camera. This type of stuff is unusual fodder for home movies, but then, this was the AIB a.g.m.

An advertising campaign for the bank running when the fraud was uncovered suggested that "in your life - anything can happen". Quite. If anyone knows to expect the unexpected it is AIB. And sure enough, within six minutes, Mr Murphy had returned. More in anger than triumph.

With other shareholders expressing concern about his stewardship of the fraud, Mr Quinn apologised for an event that "overshadows everything". That included the September 11th catastrophe. The over-statement matched by a shareholder who described the Allfirst disaster as "the Holocaust".

It was that sort of meeting. AIB's problem is that other events have overshadowed its performance before. Namely the ICI and DIRT scandals. Certain shareholders with longish memories also tut-tutted the bank's generous write-offs to the former taoisigh Charles Haughey and Dr Garret FitzGerald. Any sign of a repayment in these times of trouble, they asked? No sign.

Others had keener memories. The Holocaust man said he always had concern about the bank's venture into the US and had warned long ago that it would be a millstone round the bank's neck rather than a milestone. "I have a morbid fear of everything to do with America which dates from 1929."

With shareholders like that, who needs auditors?