Eugene Sheehy

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Eugene J. Sheehy (born 1954) is Group Chief Executive of Allied Irish Bank Plc. He was educated at Salesian College, Limerick.

He joined AIB in 1971 when he was 17 years old and spent 20 years in retail banking, including branch manager appointments in a number of important Dublin branches at Capel Street, Dame Street and Phibsborough.

He executed a radical overhaul of AIB's branch banking operation in 1992 which entailed new and, in the view of many, unpopular changes to work practice but he also brokered a deal with staff to secure implementation. He was appointed General Manager, Retail Operations in 1999, and Managing Director, AIB Bank (Republic of Ireland) in 2001.

He was appointed Chief Executive Officer of AIB's USA Division and six weeks later Executive Chairman-Designate of Allfirst Financial Inc in March 2002 when it was in melt-down following the activities of John Rusnak

Sheehy was appointed Chairman and CEO, Mid Atlantic Division, M&T Bank, and to the Executive Management Committee and Board of M&T in April 2003, following the merger of Allfirst and M&T. Appointed AIB Group Chief Executive-Designate in March 2005, co-opted to the Board May 12, 2005, and assumed responsibility as Group Chief Executive with effect from July 1, 2005.

[edit] Seeking an honourable legacy

Sheehy will be seeking to implement the sentiment of his Chairman, Dermot Gleeson which was expressed in May 2004 ^[1] - "The trust and confidence of our own customers is fundamental to our business and, where it is damaged, I am intent on doing everything possible to rebuild and repair it. This objective is shared by our staff, our management and the Board, which makes me confident of achieving this aim.

"When we do make mistakes, we do our level best to be candid about them, and to put them right. That is the most important message I would like to convey today"

These comments wre made aginst a background of controversy at AIB during the tenure of Sheehy's three immediate predecessors as group chief executive:

Michael Buckley (2001 - 2005) in the course of whose tenure AIB lost $691,000,000 arising from the illicit activities of trader John Rusnak at Allfirst, Baltimore MD, making it the fourth largest banking scandal in the world together with overcharging cutomers on a massive scale in respect of foreign exchange and other transactions^[2]. Buckley became a board member of DCC Plc in 2005.

Tom Mulcahy (1994 - 2001) whose legacy from 1996 to 2001 includes that proportion of foreign exchange tranactions overcharging together with the overcharging of customers across eight other product segments that relate to this period . When the Irish Financial Regulator disclosed the extent of overcharging in July 2004, Mulcahy resigned his chairmanship of Aer Lingus in a bid for personal and family privacy ^[3].

Gerry Scanlon whose tenure was characterized by his 'lack of knowledge'. The Deposit Interest Retention Tax evasion issue in Ireland took place during Scanlon's tenure in the corner office at Bankcentre. The Oireachtas Sub-Committee Inquiry into the matter concluded that it was 'extraordinary' that Scanlon had no knowledge of the scale of the evasion, given that its scale was comparable to a year's profit at the Bank when Scanlon was in charge. AIB parted with €90 million to the Revenue Commissioners in 2000 which was the largest defaulters tax settlement in the history of Ireland. Scanlon also had 'no knowledge' that investments made by an AIB subsidiary, in an off-shore company Faldor Limited, on his behalf between 1989 and 1996 while he was running the Bank and designed to enable senior executives evade tax. Scanlon has been a board member of Fyffes Plc since 1995 and is a member of the audit, risk and nomination committees. Fyffes lost a 2005 High Court case against DCC Plc and, others, in which it was claimed that a sale of Fyffes shares in 2000 that yielded a profit of €85 million, breached "insider dealing" provisions of the Companies Act 1990. Scanlon was listed as a tax defulter by the Revenue Commissioners in 2006^[4].