Some people never learn. National Irish Bank has been embarassed several times over in the past year in relation to stories about overcharging customers and encouraging them to invest in schemes which are not licensed in the Republic, to say nothing about queries over DIRT.

You would have thought they would have cut their losses, kept a low profile and hoped for the best from a series of inquiries currently underway into the bank's business practices.

But no. The one thing they had going for them was their immediate offer to cover legal costs borne by their staff in relation to the various inquiries. At the time, it was presented as a no-strings attempt by a caring employer to ease the concerns of staff facing a potential grilling. Now it emerges that the offer is very conditional indeed. In order to qualify for such free legal aid, staff must accede to a company request that their employers receive a copy of the transcript of any exchanges between the staff and the investigators.