Just what is it about AIB? When it comes to obtuseness, Ireland's most arrogant bank is in a class of its own. The bankrupt bank, which has already received a €3.5bn bailout from the taxpayer and will soon be back for a far bigger handout, is proposing to pay its staff €40m of bonuses next week.

Yes folks, you read that one right. Just days after Finance Minister Brian Lenihan announced that he was cutting most weekly welfare payments by a further €8 per week, AIB will be paying a total of €40m in bonuses.

AIB justifies the move on the grounds that its staff have taken legal action and they have a contractual right to the money. Give us a break.

Apparently, most of the bonuses relate to work carried out in 2008. Wasn't that the year AIB, after years of reckless lending, effectively went bust and had to be bailed out not once but twice by the taxpayer?

The first such bailout was the September 2008 deposit guarantee, which effectively bankrupted the Irish state as the taxpayer was forced to shoulder the burden of the Irish banks' losses. Then a few months later the Irish state had to inject €3.5bn, money that we had to borrow, of fresh capital into AIB.

With AIB still bleeding red ink, it will soon be back to the State looking for even more money. Although it has raised more than €4bn from asset sales, it still needs to raise a further €5.3bn by the end of February. Given that AIB shares are currently about as popular as a rat sandwich among private sector investors, most, if not all, of this money will have to come from the State.

Despite the State holding all the cards, it seems to have meekly folded when AIB staff threatened legal action to get their bonuses. Instead of telling these failed, overpaid bankers to take a hike, they will instead be getting their money, with the cheques due to go out on December 17, just 10 days after Brian Lenihan slashed social welfare rates for the second time in just 12 months.

So what should the State have done when confronted with threats of legal action from AIB staff looking for bonuses? Well, the first thing that should have been done is to publish the names of all AIB staff threatening legal action on the AIB and Government websites.

Let's see how their fellow citizens would have responded to these failures, whose collective incompetence has already bankrupted the State and beggared its citizens for a generation or more.

The former masters of the universe might have been surprised by the vehemence of the response from their fellow citizens.

Then the Government should have made it explicitly clear that it, and it is effectively the taxpayer rather than AIB itself which is paying the money, couldn't afford to pay these bonuses.

Put quite simply, can't pay, won't pay.

This isn't even a new departure. Virtually every pay deal includes an "inability to pay clause".

With its handout for a further €5.3bn of taxpayers' money, AIB meets this condition.

It's time Brian Lenihan stopped treating AIB's pampered, overpaid staff with kid gloves. By paying these bums' bonuses we are effectively rewarding failure.

If these guys want to take legal action then Lenihan should have called their bluff. I for one would like to see some of these guys squirm under cross-examination as they sought to justify their actions.

Bring it on, I can hardly wait.

- Dan White