Banking inquiry: Aynsley questions Government motives

Former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive Mike Aynsley has accused the Department of Finance of being politically motivated.

Mr Aynsley, who was Anglo chief executive from late 2009 until it entered liquidation in 2013 as Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, alleged a senior department official told one of his executives to accept a lower bid in the sale of a major business, because the higher bid came from "a named Irish businessperson or his company".

He said this had emerged in January 2013 in an email exchange between the two bodies.

He said the Department of Finance official urged the bank to instead accept a lower bid from a rival bidder, which was €100 million less.

In his written statement to the Oireachtas Banking Inquiry, he said: "The response from the DoF official was that the lower price would be preferable and that he believed the Minister for Finance [Michael Noonan] would also be supporting of that position."

Mr Aynsley did not name the businessman concerned, but asserted that his identity was the reason cited by the department official in wanting to accept a lower bid instead.

He went on to claim that the department alleged the bank should be “effectively accelerating disposals by entering into bilateral sales arrangements”.

The former chief executive said the bank had vetoed this previously in favour of a more open and transparent process.

He said this confirmed to him that the department did not have sufficient experience levels to add value to the bank’s efforts.

Mr Aynsley used his opening statement to attack the department for not being “open or transparent dialogue” between the two bodies.

He said the bank was uninformed about key influential events unfolding and claimed this became “less clear” when former secretary general John Moran was appointed in 2011.

Approval

Mr Aynsley said he became concerned about the oversight and approval process by the Department of Finance and its officials.

He said: “It appeared increasingly to be driven by political considerations rather than supporting the very real challenges that the bank faced.”

Mr Aynsley said there had been accusations made that he and the bank had close relationships with key customers but he totally rejected those assertions.

He said there was nothing “untoward in the management of these or other key client relationships which were focused on achieving the fullest possible recovery for the Bank.”

Former IBRC chairman Alan Dukes also criticised the relationship between the bank and the Department of Finance.

Speaking before the inquiry, Mr Dukes said their interactions were unnecessarily complicated.

Mr Dukes said this was created by senior officials in the Department who wanted the institution to become a subsidiary of the Department of Finance.

Ignorance

He said: “This view, which rests on complete ignorance of the most elementary principles of good governance of a statutory company and regulated entity, dogged dialogue between the bank and the Department from 2010 on.

“It seems that it was also this belief which lay behind the wish expressed by John Moran around June 2010 to be appointed to the board of the bank.

“I resisted this on the grounds that he would be seriously conflicted.

"I later had it on very high authority that the Central Bank would have regarded such an appointment as 'too close for comfort'."

Mr Dukes, who remained on as chairman when Anglo was nationalised, criticised the wind-up of the institution which became Irish Bank Resolution Corporation in 2011.

“In sum, it seemed to me that the department, having conceived the perfectly valid strategy of nationalising Anglo Irish Bank, having then concluded that a wind-down was appropriate and having handled the very difficult issues of recapitalisation and continuing support to very positive effect, decided not to have any trust in the institution it had set up,” he said.

“In the process, it wasted a great deal of time and has now created an unnecessary political controversy.”