The chairman of Irish state-owned airline Aer Lingus resigned on Saturday after being named in a tax scandal at Allied Irish Banks Plc.
Tom Mulcahy, a former Allied Irish (AIB) chief executive, quit after being identified in the Dublin media as one of 10 former and current executives who the bank says may have been guilty of tax evasion.
"Tom Mulcahy has today resigned from his position as chairman of the board of Aer Lingus," said the airline in a brief statement announcing his departure from the Irish government-appointed post.
"Mr Mulcahy played an important role as chairman of the board at a significant time for Aer Lingus."
AIB, Ireland's biggest bank by market value, said in a statement on Thursday that five former executives had been beneficiaries of an offshore company run by its investment arm in the 1990s which might have been involved in tax evasion.
It said another five senior figures - three current and two former executives - had funds in other unrelated schemes which may have been used to hide money from the tax authorities.
Mulcahy was named by Irish newspapers on Saturday as belonging to the latter group. On Friday he had issued a statement denying any knowledge of the offshore investment scheme and saying he was "fully tax compliant".
AIB has so far resisted pressure from the government to identify the 10 executives, citing legal reasons. No one at the bank was immediately available for comment on Saturday.
The disclosures came hot on the heels of the bank's admissions - in three separate statements issued over the past three weeks - that it had overcharged foreign exchange customers over an eight-year period, taken money from mortgage customers for unrequested insurance cover and possibly overcharged the beneficiaries of trust funds due to an error dating back to 1971.
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