AIB - Allied Irish Banks, p.l.c. - today issued an Interim Management Statement (IMS) and said that at the operating level, before bad debt charges, the overall group rate of income growth is expected to exceed that of cost growth in 2008 by c. 2%. The bank said that the effect of the economic downturn is most material in its Irish residential development book and it has increased the group bad debt charge to 0.75% of average loans in 2008 - - about €950m. This revision, together with the costs of higher funding and an estimate of the cost of the Irish Government guarantee scheme, resulted in the earnings per share target for this year to fall t 120 cent.