B of I visit to Dáil adds up to one happy reunion

PEOPLE THINK business types don’t have much of a sense of humour. But to be fair to them, as the global economic crisis took hold, they coined the popular collective noun for big bankers.

It is a “wunch” of bankers.

For example: many people in Ireland are of the view that a right “wunch of bankers” brought us to the mess we are in today.

Some of them had talks the other week with the Taoiseach and three senior Ministers about passing on the cuts in the ECB interest rate.

As Merrion Street awaited the arrival of this illustrious collection of brass-plated chief executives and their sidekicks, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan briefed the media outside Government Buildings. But when they spotted the well-shod wunch steaming towards them, poor Michael was abandoned mid-sentence.

“I feel like a jilted girlfriend,” muttered Baldy to nobody in particular.

They all barrelled inside. As we know now, AIB succumbed to Government pressure and is going to pass on the recent ECB quarter-point interest rate cut. Bank of Ireland isn’t.

(AIB is 99.8 per cent owned by the public; B of I is 15 per cent owned, so B of I have much more flexibility to ignore the Government.) We have a nice photo of the wunch leaving the meeting, including The Unrepentants from Bank of Ireland.

Among them is Mark Cunningham, director of business banking at Bank of Ireland.

In an earlier incarnation, Mark was an economics adviser to Fine Gael’s John Bruton when he was leader of the opposition in the early 1990s.

In fact, we hear he was one of the first in a long line of hired political help to adopt the title “chef de cabinet”.

He didn’t do a long stint.

Some people with long memories in Leinster House were wondering why Bank of Ireland brought Mr Cunningham along to meet the Government when the main focus of the meeting was the ECB interest rate cuts. After all, his job is to oversee lending to small and medium enterprises.

The conspiracy theorists will be disappointed to hear that SME lending was also briefly discussed.

However, it must have been no harm either for the Bank of Ireland to have somebody on its team with experience of that particular animal that is the FG politician.

Both Kenny and Noonan were around in John Bruton’s day. Serendipity, you might say.

Wonder did they remember each other?