BANK OF Ireland has appointed Dennis Holt, a non-executive director of the bank, as its deputy governor and announced a reshuffle of boardroom committee positions.

Mr Holt has been appointed senior independent director of the bank and will act as deputy to Pat Molloy, a former chief executive of the bank who was appointed governor (chairman) last June.

A former board member of British bank Lloyds TSB and chief executive of Axa insurance’s UK and Irish operations, Mr Holt joined the Bank of Ireland’s board, which is known as the court, in 2006.

As part of a series of new appointments to boardroom committees within the bank, Tom Considine, who was appointed by the Government under the bank guarantee scheme, becomes chairman of the bank’s new risk committee.

The committee was created to assess risks after the bank forecast loan write-offs of €6 billion over the three years to March 2011, primarily due to speculative property and development lending.

The other members of this committee are solicitor Rose Hynes; former managing partner at KPMG Jerome Kennedy; Terry Neill, previously a partner at Accenture; and Patrick O’Sullivan, a former vice-chairman of Zurich Financial Services in Switzerland, who joined the board of the bank last month.

Mr Kennedy, a non-executive director of the bank since July 2007, has also taken over as chairman of the audit committee.

Mr Considine is also a member of the audit committee.

Declan McCourt, chief executive of the OHM motor group, has been appointed chairman of the remuneration committee. The bank’s second State appointee, Joe Walsh, the former Fianna Fáil agriculture minister, is a member of the remuneration committee, which sets pay for executives.