SKETCH:Put on the sad expression. Silently empathise. Stick it out. Go for lunch, writes MIRIAM LORD.

THE RICHIES were on the platform.

And then there were the ordinary people.

That’s always the way when a big bank calls a meeting like this.

No more than the width of an orchestra pit kept the two sides apart yesterday, but the chasm in thinking between them was of Grand Canyon proportions.

The Richies were Bank of Ireland governor, Richard Burrows (RB1) and Bank of Ireland chief executive, Richie Boucher (RB2).

RB1 and RB2, and 17 other members of the board of directors arrayed around them, their eyes downcast, faces set in penitential mode. Most of them know the drill by now.

Put on the sad expression. Silently empathise. Stick it out. Breathe a sigh of relief. Go for lunch.

Because, in a few hours, when the shouting has died down, RB1 and RB2 will pull a few million proxy rabbits out of the hat and The Richies at the top table will go home with exactly what they came for.

They called it an extraordinary general meeting (egm), but there was nothing in the least bit extraordinary about it. That’s what made the experience so dispiriting.

The only significant difference between the recent egm of Anglo Irish Bank and its contrite line of Uriah Heeps at the top table, and the similarly ‘umble cast of suits from Bank of Ireland abasing themselves before a furious audience, was the venue.

Anglo chose the Mansion House. The B of I, rather bizarrely, housed its seething shareholders in the Savoy Cinema on Dublin’s O’Connell Street.

Actually, there was one other difference. Anglo managed to lay on tea and biscuits. The Bank of Ireland had water in plastic cups. But then, they were always flash gits in Anglo, as the nation eventually discovered to its cost.

It was an impressive venue. Shame about the main feature. A stinker of the horror genre.

The egm was convened to rubberstamp the Irish taxpayers’ recapitalisation of the bank. Business that The Two Richies needed to complete to get on with their task of “steering us into the next stage” after they steered the company and their shareholders’ hard-earned nest eggs into a brick wall.

Nearly 1,000 shareholders turned up to vent their spleen against the bank that blew their rainy-day money.

From the top of the auditorium, they ranged in semi-circular rows down to the cinema screen. Grey was the predominant colour. Grey hair, lots of grey hair.

Maybe that’s why the directors avert their eyes. Why they never say anything but just look down at their hands.

RB1 and RB2 took the hits. They smoothly dealt with the questions. These guys could give lessons in anger management. No matter what class of insult was hurled at them by some very, very angry people, they remained calm and reasonable and most understanding.

They couldn’t apologise enough. Mind you, the shareholders didn’t want apologies. They wanted resignations, and failing that, big cuts in pay packets and bonuses.

That was all being looking into, going forward, soothed the Two Richies. Weren’t there two government representatives, there in the public interest, sitting on the board already?

Sure enough, former minister Joe Walsh and Tom Considine were at the very long top table. They sat at either end, clinging to the extremes. Joe was partly concealed by a television camera and Tom looked like he was only sitting upright thanks to the aid of ropes and crampons. They said nothing.

Speakers spoke about the sacrifice of the men and women of 1916. “As anyone who listens to Joe Duffy would know...” said one elderly man. “For the first time in my life, I feel like a young fella,” began a man in his sixties. He was saddened, having to listen to people talk about people in their eighties and nineties losing the money they put aside to pay for their nursing homes.

Then he raised his voice and shouted at the directors: “Raise your eyes up and look at your shareholders!” The audience murmured its approval.

And they did. They all looked up. And they saw the pensioners, many of whom know that they probably won’t be around to see the upturn that The Two Richies predicted would eventually come.

What do they know about what the loss of their investments means to these elderly people? “You guys will never know, because while you’re having lunch in Shanahans, we’ll be in McDonalds.”

But Richard Burrows, in response to calls for resignations, said the board would resign before the annual general meeting in July and it would be up to “you” the shareholders to vote them back in. “Do you think we came down with the fairies?” asked one of them.

The proxy votes from the big institutions, the management and investment funds would win the day. Everyone in the hall knew that, which was the depressing part.

The egm began at 11am. At it neared 3pm, RB1 said they would have to wrap things up shortly because the movies were due to begin.

What was on in the Savoy yesterday? Monsters vs Aliens, The Boat that Rocked, Knowing and Duplicity. The early matinee was a private screening. A triple bill.

Ordinary People, Lip Service and Poor little Richie Boys.

Here’s the tag line: “We believe we have the capital. We believe we have the liquidity. Can we be absolutely certain? No.”