Yea I agree w/ Purple,
There is very little difference them really - it's all down to relationship.
We generally bring our clients to BOI - College Green, why?
In many cases they can give you an account number on the day you bring the Company Formation Documents [Certificate of Incorporate and Memorandum/Articles] and fill in the account opening form.
The reason this is good for us is when we apply for a VAT number for a client you need to have the account details, so it speeds up the process -
We can have a company formed in 3-5 days, Bank account opened on day or day after company is formed, and VAT registration 10-15 days from that date.
But I have to say we've had problems getting the Online Banking setup with Bank of Ireland.
they have great online software for banking online, but have centralised the whole process for getting setup online. It can take up to a month to get set up on their online system (Which is a real bottleneck for many people).
Paul.