Comment: Is there no end to it? Previous scandals in Irish public life have shown how once the can is open, all kinds of worms start crawling out.
By issuing a statement yesterday - apparently on the prompting of IFSRA - outlining tax avoidance by senior executives and "unacceptable" dealing practices, AIB is hoping to scrape out its particular can.
However, the latest revelations - in particular those relating to five former "senior executives" - are in some ways the most serious to date. If five people formerly at a high level in the bank were - as it now appears - using an investment vehicle run by AIB's own investment arm to evade tax, then it is an extraordinary reflection on the way the bank operated and the culture these people fostered.
The latest news comes in the wake of the foreign exchange overcharging fiasco and more minor matters relating to trust-fund charging and mortgage protection policies. The cumulative impact of all this is at least as serious for the bank as the Rusnak trading scandal in terms of its reputation, if not financially.
Rusnak and the overcharging episodes could be put down to various systems failures within the bank - though the results of the investigation into the foreign exchange affair will tell a lot.
However, the latest affair involves conscious decisions by unnamed senior executives. It is one thing to face questions about the bank's culture in relation to not policing charging structures.
It is quite another to explain how five "former senior executives" - and when the bank says "senior" we must assume they mean at a high level - used the bank's own investment arm to devise an offshore tax structure.
AIB is at pains to point out that these practices did not affect its customers.
However, shareholders will ask questions about how AIBIM in-house accounts - in effect the bank's own money - were disadvantaged to the extent of €48,000 by the operation of Faldor, the offshore vehicle used by five former senior executives.
And clearly someone lost out, as the bank has had to pay €330,000 to two specialist trusts relating to "unacceptable deal-allocation practices in nine transactions" between 1991 and 1993.
The latest affair begs some very serious questions. The most obvious is why five senior executives of the bank were evading tax through the Faldor structure and five others through other vehicles? What precisely was done to advantage Faldor, including the €48,000 mentioned above? And a crucial issue is how AIB's own control systems did not spot either the Faldor deal or the poor dealing practices.
Banks spend a lot of money safeguarding against "reputation risk". But sooner or later reality will catch up if the behaviour of senior people does not live up to the public image the bank seeks to promote.
