AIB II

While I am still saddled and riding around on my high horse named 'indignation', I would also like to point out the breath-taking hypocrisy of those in the higher, executive floors of the Irish people's bank.

Specifically what they earn (and by implication, what we don't).

They earn a lot. What exactly constitutes a 'a lot', I don't know. But I should know, or rather, those of you reading this in Ireland who are either (a) taxpayers, or (b) AIB 'customers' (and being made pay for the privilege), are entitled to know.

AIB is a nationalised bank, property of the state and thus those who work there are de facto public employees. Thus, details of their salaries, in line with all civil servants, should be freely available to the public. This is not to say that individual salaries can be made public, but rather that the salary grades for each position within the organisational hierarchy should be publicly available to anyone who cares to find out.

And this should include a clear explanation of both basic salary and any bonuses, retainers, incentives, sweeteners or whatever the glib term du jour is for the extra money they get for their alleged expertise.

Which brings up the question of how that expertise is determined and who does the determining.

Remember folks, back in the giddy euphoria of the mid noughties, these same banks were giving outlandish bonuses in order to keep their expertise 'in house'; a house characterised by the financial equivalent of aristocratic aloofness and a 'let them eat breakfast roll' like disdain for everyone else.

And where did that expertise get us? What exactly were these bankers being paid for? If it was to fuck up the Irish economy for a long and interminable future, then they certainly earned every last hypocritical cent. If it was just to fuck up, then, for instance, me and the rest of the 1994 graduating class from DCU would have happily done it, and done it well (albeit to an achingly hip soundtrack) for one percent of the money they earned. 

And yet, with the wheedling insistence of latter day Mephistopheles, still these executives whisper in whatever willing political ear they can find, that such salaries and bonuses are justified; that to hire the best, you have to pay the best. 

And if they turn out to be the worst, well, sure why worry, it's not really our money; the Irish taxpayer, Mr. O'Faust, is paying for it after all...