$2.9m pension boost for AIB boss

Frank Bramble, chairman of the fraud-hit US arm of Allied Irish Banks, is to have $2.9m paid into his pension pot when he retires in June.

Mr Bramble ran AIB's Allfirst operation in Baltimore where John Rusnak perpetrated a £485m fraud that has rocked the Dublin-based bank since it was uncovered in February.

Mr Bramble, aged 53, is to retire without carrying any personal blame for the fraud that Mr Rusnak is said to have "carefully planned and meticulously implemented" over a five-year period. The payment into Mr Bramble's pension was revealed in a regulatory filing by Allfirst in the United States, which also showed that he would receive a monthly pension of more than $6,000 when he reaches 55 in June next year.

The filing does not disclose what Mr Bramble earned last year but he was paid €783,000 (£480,000) in the year to December 2000, according to previous report and accounts filed by AIB.

A spokesman for AIB insisted that the payment to Mr Bramble was not a top-up to his pension but an amount he was entitled to through accrued pension entitlements.

His retirement was announced last month when the bank released the details of a report commissioned by the board by Gene Ludwig, an independent investigator.

Six more junior staff at Allfirst did lose their jobs, the most senior being David Cronin, the treasurer who Mr Ludwig said had been "asleep at the switch".

However, to much surprise in the City, Susan Keating, chief executive of Allfirst, kept her job.