WITH ALLIED Irish Banks set to become the latest of our financial institutions to fall into State ownership, what now for the myriad lobby groups that represent the sector?

AIB and Anglo Irish Bank have traditionally helped to bankroll the Irish Banking Federation, which also numbers building societies EBS and Irish Nationwide as members.

The federation’s budget is thought to amount to a couple of million euro a year – a chunky sum in these recessionary times.

But it is not the only body to represent the sector here.

Others include Financial Services Ireland, which is part of employers’ group Ibec, which in turn has traditionally received funding from the big banks.

There’s also Funds Industry Ireland and the Irish Insurance Federation.

With the boom over and taxpayers picking up the tab for years of shoddy lending, the hope is that every cent spent will now be carefully accounted for by our State-owned financial groups.

Rationalising the number of groups that represent the shrinking financial sector would seem like an obvious cost-saving move, however modest.

Besides, the country already has enough expensive quangos. We don’t need any more.