An Irish judge has blasted bankers saying he would prefer to lie down with pigs.

Judge John Neilan said, "If they (bankers) had an ounce of decency, then they would leave their offices in shame, with their heads hung low.

"I would sooner lie in the gutter with a pig," he said.

Neilan was speaking during a court case in which a couple were being sued for an outstanding car loan.

The bank, ACC, was seeking $70 a month to an $16,000 loan; the same amount as the couple had offered to pay a year earlier.

"The geniuses running the banks are no different to the geniuses who ran us into the ground in the first place," Neilan said.

"There was a time in the past when banks and their buildings would be dismantled stone by stone by the people in outrage at what is being done," he said.

The judge said the bank was remiss in refusing the same offer a year ago but that he expected no better saying bankers were "totally, utterly, absolutely removed from people like you and me."