Dukes accuses finance official of making misleading remarks to PAC

Former chairman of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation Alan Dukes has accused a senior official within the Department of Finance of making "seriously misleading" remarks to the Dáil's Public Accounts Committee at a hearing on Thursday.

Mr Dukes, who is also a former minister for finance, said the remarks by Ann Nolan, second secretary general of the department, showed a "lack of understanding" about the significance of the nationalisation of Anglo Irish Bank in January 2009.

Anglo was subsequently merged with the similarly nationalised Irish Nationwide Building Society to form IBRC. Mr Dukes was referring to Ms Nolan’s comments to the committee that there was a culture in IBRC “that never really recognised the damage they had done to the country, and that their independence meant they should not be answerable, even though they had taken a lot of money from us”.

Change of board

Mr Dukes said that Anglo’s nationalisation was followed by a complete change in the board, with the approval of the then minister for finance,

Brian Lenihan

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This was followed by the recruitment of a new and experienced senior management team from outside the Irish banking system, again with the approval of the minister.

Mr Dukes noted that the mandate of the nationalised entity was to limit the losses arising from the bank’s activities prior to the bank guarantee of September 2008 and to recover the maximum possible amount from the wreckage. IBRC received a €35 billion bailout from the State.

“This mandate was fully accepted by the nationalised bank,” Mr Dukes said. “The new board and management were not the people who had done damage to the country. Ms Nolan, on the other hand, held a senior position in the department of finance while the damage was being done under its oversight.”

Mr Dukes said the Anglo Irish Bank Corporation Act, 2009, set up an entity with all the obligations imposed by company law and the code of practice for state-owned entities. It was also regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland and the Financial Regulator.