FG and Labour critical of delay on Fingleton decision

DÁIL REPORT:OPPOSITION LEADERS have condemned as pushing into "Never-Never Land" and "hoping it will blow over" a Government decision to allow up to a month to investigate the €1 million bonus payment to Irish Nationwide Building chief executive Michael Fingleton.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said it was a case of “fingers to the taxpayer”, while Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said there was no justification for a month’s delay when the Government had the power to deal with the issue directly.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen insisted, however, that they had to proceed “in a proper fashion”. He told the Dáil that “the question arises whether in fact a bonus arrangement was agreed by the board which predated the enactment of legislation that brought about the State guarantee, the circumstances if that was the case, and the legal options available”.

“It’s a question of ensuring that we proceed in a proper fashion and ensuring that we get an outcome in which the Government is just as anxious as anyone else to see . . . the return of the bonus concerned.”

Mr Kenny criticised the Minister for Finance’s decision to give a month to the two public-interest directors appointed to the building society to investigate the payment of a €1 million bonus to the chief executive, when the institution was covered by State guarantee.

Mr Kenny said it was “disgusting behaviour” of some financial institutions “where it is literally fingers to the taxpayer”.

Mr Fingleton had secured “an obscene extent of defined benefit pension and has been awarded a bonus of €1 million”.

The only response was “a statement from the Minister for Finance that there is now going to be an investigation and another report inside a month”.

Mr Kenny added, “it’s always the same – another report. Another report another investigation, wait another month and hope it will blow over . . . It’s not fair, it is not just and it’s not the kind of country we want”.

Legislation had been introduced to retrospectively make legal the payment of nursing home fees for elderly people. “If it was possible to do this then the same principle should apply now,” he said.

He called for “swift, appropriate decisive action now and not have us waiting for another month to establish what we already know, ie that a bonus of a million was paid out after the legislation was passed here in a case that people find absolutely appalling and obscene.”

Mr Gilmore, who said that Mr Fingleton was “known as ‘Fingers’ to his cronies”, questioned why it had to take a month to draw up a report.

“It didn’t take a month in the United States when they discovered that there were very big bonuses being paid in AIG for them to deal with it.

“Taking a month here means putting it beyond the date of the Budget, putting it beyond Easter and putting it into that kind of ‘Never-Never Land’ where things that are investigated for a month never really come back again and get overtaken by other events.”

Mr Gilmore pointed out that the State guarantee legislation provided that in respect of any difficulty, the Minister for Finance may “make any regulations to do anything that appears necessary or expedient to deal with the situation”.

He said: “You have the power to deal with it. There is no justification at all for leaving it for a month.”

The Taoiseach said they had to proceed in a “proper fashion” and they would “explore every and all options available” based “on the facts to be established” and on whether the bonus was “entered into before the State guarantee scheme came into play”.

They would also look at what authorisation the board gave, why it was in the society’s interest and “what way were the fiduciary duties of directors discharged in that respect”.