The Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan T.D., notes today’s announcement by Allied Irish Banks plc regarding the resignation of Mr David Duffy as Group Chief Executive and Director to pursue a career opportunity overseas.
Mr David Duffy assumed the AIB Group CEO role in December 2011. At the time of his appointment the bank’s Chairman, Mr David Hodgkinson, described him as being “ideally suited to the task of leading AIB’s extensive restructuring and delivering the business performance that will best serve its customers and return the bank to sustainable viability”.
Commenting on Mr Duffy’s resignation, the Minister stated:
“Under the stewardship of Mr Duffy, AIB has undergone a major transformation, in line with this Government’s banking strategy, and is now operating to support economic growth and jobs in the Irish economy. The extensive restructuring required is largely completed and the bank has significantly improved its relationship with new and existing customers. The bank has been returned to profitability and passed the recent ECB Comprehensive Assessment. The bank is now a very valuable asset for the Irish taxpayer. Mr Duffy has built a strong and capable management team in the bank and the outlook for the bank as stated in its most recent trading update to the market is very positive.
As the bank prepares to commence the next step in its journey to repaying the significant investment made by the Irish taxpayer Mr Duffy has decided to pursue a new career challenge overseas. Given the significant progress made by AIB under Mr Duffy’s executive leadership I extend my thanks to him for his professionalism and vigour in the role and wish him continued success. Mr. Duffy will continue in his role and his final departure date has yet to be agreed. He will support the board in identifying a successor. I will be consulting with the Chairman, Mr Richard Pym, in the coming days to put in place the process to recruit a new Chief Executive of the bank.
As I indicated last week, we have a busy work programme around fixing the bank’s capital structure during 2015. We have already commenced discussions with the bank in this regard. No decisions have been taken regarding a reduction of the State’s ownership in the bank at this time and the completion of this work programme is an essential prerequisite for any future decisions of this nature”.
Ends
19th January 2015
