One More Thing: Banks’ corporate hospitality

It was a long day at the banking inquiry on Wednesday for the developers Sean Mulryan and Michael O'Flynn, the first property developers to address the probe. O'Flynn didn't finish giving evidence until after 10pm.

An appendix to Mulryan’s written statement lays out the corporate hospitality afforded to the company by banks during the boom years. According to his statement, bank jollies were “ mainly offered to the group finance director, Brian Fagan” and not to Mulryan himself.

“[Fagan] would have been invited to sports events both in Ireland and abroad. To a lesser extent he was invited to property awards nights and concerts,” it said.

Mulryan apparently didn’t attend many corporate hospitality events as a guest of the banks. “[He] was often the host of corporate hospitality rather than the financial institutions hosting.”

Bank of Ireland, the statement says, took Ballymore executives to see a Robbie Williams concert, to the property awards in London, and also to see a Harry Potter movie premiere.

Examples of Anglo Irish Bank events that Ballymore executives attended include a Chelsea versus Barcelona football match, the Cheltenham races and the 2006 Ryder Cup at the K Club. Mulryan was a guest of both Anglo and Michael Smurfit that day.

The statement says AIB took Ballymore executives to the Ryder Cup in Valhalla two years later, according to Mulryan's written statement.

That would have been at the height of the crisis, about 10 days before the introduction of the bank guarantee at the end of September, 2008.