The State has generated €29.7 billion through share sales and other transactions relating to its stakes in Bank of Ireland, PTSB and AIB. The Minister for Finance retains a 3.3 per cent shareholding in AIB and a 57 per cent stake in PTSB.
The backdrop has changed considerably since the government committed the original funding during the 2008 financial crisis. The bailout of the banking system was not solely responsible for tipping the country into an EU/IMF programme in November 2010, but it bears a lot of responsibility.
It was inevitable that over the pensuing 15 years, the banks became a target for politicians. Notwithstanding the fact that much of it was performative outrage, it was also entirely legitimate.
The reckless lending standards across the banking system in the years preceding the 2008 crash stoked an unsustainable credit bubble. It took years of painful austerity to restore fiscal stability.
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Indeed, for most of the last decade, the banks were embroiled in another scandal when they tried to remove customers, often illegally, from tracker mortgages.
Following the injection of taxpayer funds into the bank, the government imposed strict caps on pay and bonuses.
However, the time is now right to consider removing these emergency measures. As Bank of Ireland and AIB are free of government control, they are no longer bound by pay restrictions. It would be something of an own goal if these restrictions continue to apply to PTSB as it would put it at a competitive disadvantage and ultimately weigh on how much is returned to the taxpayer when it is eventually sold.
EU banking union, which was established in 2014, has created a comprehensive regulatory framework for the banks and significantly reduces the prospects of a future credit bubble.
Removing restrictions on the banks is not about absolving them for their behaviour in the recent past - it is about putting them in the best position possible to serve the economy in the future.
