ANGLO IRISH Bank chairman Seán FitzPatrick and chief executive David Drumm met Central Bank board member Alan Gray privately the day before the bank guarantee was introduced in a bid to lobby for Government support to save the bank.
Mr FitzPatrick and Mr Drumm met Mr Gray, an economic consultant, on Monday, September 29th, 2008, hours before the Government agreed on the €440 billion bank guarantee.
Anglo had sought a €1.5 billion short-term loan from the Central Bank, which had not yet made a decision on the request. It is understood that the bank approached Mr Gray in the belief that he would make representations to the Government to intervene to prevent the bank running out of cash.
The meeting took place two months after Mr FitzPatrick and Mr Gray attended the controversial dinner with Taoiseach Brian Cowen at the Druids Glen golf resort in Co Wicklow.
Mr Gray yesterday confirmed the September 29th meeting had taken place, and also another meeting with Mr FitzPatrick in early September 2008 when the then Anglo chairman telephoned him and told him that he was near his Dublin offices and requested a short meeting.
Mr Gray said that at the earlier meeting Mr FitzPatrick indicated the funding difficulties in the Irish banking sector. Mr Gray recommended that the “appropriate channel to discuss this was for Anglo Irish Bank to contact officials in the Central Bank”. Mr FitzPatrick said this had already been done.
The September 29th meeting lasted five to 10 minutes after Mr FitzPatrick and Mr Drumm “arrived unexpectedly at his office” to his surprise, said Mr Gray.
The bankers again told him at this meeting that Anglo had extremely severe funding difficulties and he again directed them to “discuss this with the Central Bank officials”.
“They did not ask Mr Gray to take any action or make any representations to any other parties,” Mr Gray said in a statement. “Mr Gray did not discuss this with any other parties and at no stage ever made any representations of any kind on behalf of Anglo Irish Bank. Mr Gray confirms he did not discuss this with the Taoiseach, or with anybody else.”
He also confirmed that the Taoiseach contacted him by telephone on the night of the Government bank guarantee “to obtain his views as a director of the Central Bank on the likely market reaction”.
A Government spokesman said that Mr Gray had made no representations to, or contact with, either the Taoiseach or his department at the time. Mr FitzPatrick and Mr Drumm have refused to make any further public comment.
Mr Gray’s term as a Central Bank board member ended last September.
In a presentation to Mr Gray at the September 29th meeting, Anglo indicated that it had sought a loan of €1.5 billion from the Central Bank to tide it over to the end of September 2008 and recommended that a Special Liquidity Support fund be established to allow all the banks to draw funding should the financial situation deteriorate further.