It’s said that coming from Limerick, Michael Noonan carries a big knife when he’s soft-talking and it would be fascinating to be that fly on the wall at the various meetings he’ll soon hold with bank leaders on the vexed question of variable mortgage rates, to see if he keeps it in its scabbard.

At a personality level alone, the meetings should be fascinating. The executive and boards of both Bank of Ireland and Ulster Bank can read media reports like the rest of us, and no doubt have also been informed through numerous back channels that the Minister plans to “plead” with them to reduce their variable rates in the interests of their hard-pressed customers and his hard-pressed voters.

But the flinty tones of Bank of Ireland’s Scottish chairman, Archie Kane and the clipped staccato of Zambian-born chief executive, Richie Boucher, were unambiguous at this week’s annual meeting of shareholders - the bank will continue to review interest rate policy generally but must remain competitive in the market and must continue to price risk-based lending appropriately.

In other words - there’ll be no softening of positions anytime soon unless the Minister does a little more than bring his dagger to the meeting, but actually uses it to threaten material damage and trigger second thoughts.

Richie Boucher confirmed the bank’s business focus wasn’t even on variable mortgages anymore, but on encouraging existing customers to switch to fixed rate loans, which are currently slightly cheaper, and that a minimum of 50 percent of all new mortgages written would be of the fixed variety.   

At least the Minister, on our behalf, still owns 14 percent of Bank of Ireland and may, because of that, be able to exert some impact by just fingering his blade.

The State holds no equity in Ulster Bank and that bank’s Chief Executive’s curt, negative Kiwi response to Oireachtas Finance Committee queries about further variable rate cuts was refreshingly free of jargon. Jim Browne’s chutzpah was probably bolstered by the fact that he’s moving soon to take up a new position with Ulster’s parent, RBS in the UK.

The two banks in which the taxpayer holds an almost 100 percent share, AIB and Permanent TSB were more nuanced in their positions, almost certainly because they have to be. The Minister can inflict  some painful but discrete bruising here without necessarily having to draw blood.  It also helps his position that these institutions account for the majority of the country’s 300,000 plus variable mortgage holders.

Following its massively oversubscribed new share issue this week, Permanent TSB is unlikely to get away much longer with claims that a reduction in its variable rates will impact on the bank’s financial health and delay a return to profitability.

This may be technically accurate, but the argument was lost in the investor stampede to buy into Ireland’s recovery story. Expect both AIB and Permanent TSB to make some reduction announcements around the time of their cups of tea with the Minister.

As for the other pair, the Minister could always threaten additional levies or penalties unless they act, but this is a blunt instrument that could spook potential investors in AIB later this year, a big glittering prize for the State.

So, it may boil down to some ministerial thrusting of the knife but with no intention of actual bodily contact...in return for more ambiguous language and possibilities on the part of Bank of Ireland and Ulster, delivered in slightly less clipped tones.