# AIB loan 21Billion ffom taxpayer



## dewdrop (11 Nov 2014)

Irish Examiner has headline "AIB gets a "free pass" on 21Billion it owes us" and goes on to say AIB  has no legal requirement to repay. While  this may be factually correct I think the headline could give the wrong impression?


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## noproblem (11 Nov 2014)

If it's correct, it's correct. You can take whatever meaning you want from it, but why would you do that? White isn't black, no matter what you might think.


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## Brendan Burgess (11 Nov 2014)

This is what the body of the article says "One market source described  the European Commission’s ruling on AIB as a “free pass”. " I suspect that he meant that it was a free pass for the government which  is free to do what it wants with AIB, whereas BoI had to sell ICS, and  ptsb had to sell New Ireland. 

The taxpayer owns 99.8% of AIB, so it's just one arm of the government.  The government will recover most or all of the money invested through the sale of shares. 

I imagine that the Business Editor will be annoyed with the headline. 


Brendan


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## Gerry Canning (11 Nov 2014)

It is a catchy headline and is too simplistic.

We now have the dubious honour of owning AIB and doing what we think with it.

I just hope our Government have the gumption to keep it in our ownership so that when the next collapse comes we have a solvent Bank on peoples side.
I would object to Government hiving off AIB to the {Market} , cause if they do ,I think they are still in awe of the {market} and not as they should be ie. custodians of the peoples welfare.

ps. Could we not change AIBs name ,that name carries a lot of negative baggage.


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## dewdrop (11 Nov 2014)

Thanks Brendan for the clarification. I think in recent times the image of AIB has much improved.


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