If AIB's headquarters were not in Dublin, it is doubtful whether Mr Michael Buckley would still have a job. The last few months have seen high-level departures from the boards of well-known UK companies such as Shell, Rentokil, and Marks & Spencer, as investors railed against what they considered incompetence and poor leadership.
Closer to home, National Australia Bank - which owns National Irish Bank and Northern Bank - shed its top management team earlier this year in the wake of a €220 million foreign exchange fraud.
By this yardstick Mr Buckley should have parted company with AIB in 2002 because of his ultimate responsibility for the €580 million fraud at Allfirst, AIB's US subsidiary. Equally, he should have considered his position over the bank's less than stellar investment in Poland which he spearheaded, or the €153 million loss incurred on the sale of its Govett investment business last year.
Mr Buckley did - in fact - tender his resignation in the wake of the Rusnak affair, but it was not accepted. There was considerable pressure on him, particularly from the UK investment community, but the big Irish shareholders and the AIB board backed him.
The argument put forward was that sacking Mr Buckley would merely be a sop to angry shareholders and would disrupt the much more important task of rectifying the damage. With hindsight this was a successful strategy. The bank's massive profitability allowed it to absorb the cost of the Rusnak affair and its share price recovered over time.
It remains to be seen whether Mr Buckley will survive the current crisis at AIB. The amounts of money involved in the issues that have come to light are small relative to the Rusnak affair and not material in financial terms for a bank of AIB's size.
But there are a number of salient differences, the most significant being that the victims in this case are the bank's Irish customers. In addition, the internal culture and values of AIB have been exposed as deeply flawed. The real pressure for accountability at a senior level will have to come from the pension funds and other institutions which own the bank. If their past track record is anything to go by they will be very slow to act. They will be guided by the impact of this latest crisis on the value of their investment, which to date has been minimal.
The tipping point may come if the damage that has been done to the bank's reputation in recent weeks - and the trust that is implicit in a banking relationship - continues to adversely affect its business credibility in the long term. But this will not become apparent for some time and the danger is that by then the damage will have been done.
Ultimately Mr Buckley's fate rests with the AIB board and its chairman, Mr Dermot Gleeson, SC, who will receive a report on the latest scandal next month. As he will know, accountability is now a measure not only of political life but Irish commercial life also.