'Stony-faced' was how one attendee described the 14 directors who sat on the podium yesterday, writes LAURA SLATTERY

“WHY CAN’T you get ordinary cars?” wondered a Bank of Ireland shareholder, as she surveyed the board. There are just too many “Mercs and perks”, she said.

“The small shareholders are not being listened to. You don’t care a hoot about what we are saying here today.”

Indeed, most of the 14 bank directors who sat in line on the O’Reilly Hall podium in UCD had adopted an air of impassiveness, punctuated only by the odd sneeze. “Stony-faced” is how one shareholder described the look.

Pat Molloy, the recently appointed chairman (or governor, in the language of the bank), did the talking. Shareholders grilled him on a range of grievous topics. It wasn’t just the weather they had braved to get there. One said he had discharged himself from his “bed of pain” in the Mater Hospital to get some answers.

Yes, the bank was “committed to remaining independent” (as opposed to nationalised), Molloy said. No, he would not resign if the “hit” to the bank from transferring loans to the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) exceeded the current estimate of €4.8 billion.

Yes, the bank had recently hired 30 lawyers for a spot of pre-Nama commercial conveyancing. No, the bank was not “stress testing” members of the board, although if any directors wanted to submit to a psychiatric assessment of that kind, it could be arranged.

No, it was not true that directors received a fixed fee of €3,000 for every meeting they attended. There was no fixed fee, Molloy said. Directors received €63,000 a year, he added hesitantly, as the figure drew gasps. But they were meeting “almost every week” now, he assured them. Needs must.

They were here, ostensibly, to vote on Bank of Ireland’s participation in Nama. The shareholders present were divided as to whether Nama really was the only show in town. Was it merely the “least bad” option? Was Molloy, as shareholder Cornelius Cagney put it, “like the captain of the Titanic”, steering them all into “disastrous territory”. Or shouldn’t they put “negative” talk to one side and just get on with it?

First, what about an inquiry? “We want to know how the mess occurred,” said shareholder Peter Matthews, a former executive at ICC bank. The board should be “getting behind Patrick Honohan’s cry from the heart” to hold a full inquiry, he said.

One shareholder speculated that if six aircraft were to crash at Dublin airport and the air traffic controller said there should be an inquiry, “it would be madness not to start straight away”.

Molloy did not use the “I” word. “We are where we are,” he told shareholders. The phrase elicited a smattering of boos.

Egm attendees feared the passing of a resolution yesterday meant the board could afford to care a little less about small shareholders. Certain measures proposed by the board will now only require majority approval, rather than 75 per cent. The backing of institutional shareholders – who own 55 per cent of the stock – would be enough to sideline the little guys.

Molloy said the resolution was a “two-edged sword” for the board because it would allow for the removal of directors if 51 per cent of the shareholders vote in favour, rather than the current 75 per cent requirement.

“Let’s roll up the sleeves,” concluded Matthews on a conciliatory note, citing Dunkirk. “2010 could be a great year of robust recovery,” he suggested.

Molloy said he hoped so.