IT WAS a busy week for Stephen Kingon, former managing partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Northern Ireland.

On Tuesday, AIB announced Kingon, Anne Maher and David Pritchard would be stepping down from its board at the forthcoming agm as part of a renewal programme sought by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan.

The trio have been on the AIB board since 2007 – before the financial crash.

Noonan wants all bank directors who pre-date the crash to go for the simple reason that it happened under their watch.

The day after the AIB announcement, Kingon was appointed chairman of Northern Ireland Electricity, the electricity network company. NIE is owned by ESB, the State-owned energy group – and the Minister for Finance is an 85 per cent shareholder in ESB. Has the Minister any view on Mr Kingon’s appointment by NIE? A spokesman declined to comment.