Eugene Sheehy had two whirlwind years when he took over at Allied Irish Bank and his profit performance in this period may not be matched by another Irish banker for many years.

At the end of 2006, he posted the largest net profit in the bank's history at €2.3bn. The year before that he presided over a profit of €1.4bn.

Provisions for bad loans in these periods were negligible and dividends surged at the end of 2007 to 74.3 cent a share. But we now know these apparently stellar numbers were masking serious vulnerabilities in the loan book built up by Sheehy and his executive team.

After setting all the right kind of records in his first two years, Sheehy has recently been setting records no AIB chief executive would ever have thought possible.

In the first half of this year, Sheehy has posted provisions for bad loans of €2.3bn, a record for the bank.

The losses for the first half of €786m, if replicated over the full year, would also represent the largest net loss ever posted by the bank. The figure for impaired loans in Ireland, €8.5bn, is also a record in the area of credit quality.

Clearly, the onset of a severe global financial crisis has to be taken into account when assessing these numbers, but no other chief executive in Irish corporate history has ever presided over such a sudden and sharp reversal of fortunes.