RESIDENTS in Ballsbridge need to be up very early in the morning to keep an eye on the latest attempts to sneak through planning applications.

And we're not talking about slippery developers here but the country's biggest bank, AIB, which this week slipped in a planning application to build yet another block in its crowded Ballsbridge bank centre. Notice of the application was craftily published in the Examiner, which is hardly the biggest selling paper in Dublin 4, so as not to attract the attention of the ever vigilant local residents associations. The planned block is by no means a token extension, but will extend to 16,000sq m - a net area of around 172,000sq ft - precisely two-thirds the size of the original bank centre.

The bank says it needs accommodation for 1,000 additional back-up staff in Ballsbridge. What on earth for, now that they are still closing down branches and encouraging customers to conduct their business via the internet. Do they really need to bring so many extra people to Ballsbridge at a time when the Government is itself attempting to move public servants to a range of provincial towns where there is little or no congestion and where housing costs are considerably lower.

No doubt the bank will duly flog on the new block when it is completed. It has already pulled in €377 million from the sale of the existing headquarters as well as the 3.7 acres at the front which buyer Sean Dunne hopes to develop, though his original plans to push the boundary out onto the Merrion Road has already fallen foul of locals.