Sir, – Following on from John McManus’s Business Opinion column (September 12th), would someone explain why civil actions cannot be initiated against the key individuals that grossly mismanaged the economy, the banks and their borrowings over the past decade? This legal route would speed up the collection and presentation of evidence and reduce the duration and complexity of any possible trials.
It is worth noting that the Quinn family has gone to court claiming grounds for suing Anglo for alleged negligence, breach of duty and intentional and/or negligent infliction of economic damage and, separately, that the High Court has ruled that a former chief executive and director of National Irish Bank was negligent and that his conduct had fallen below the required standard and constituted a fundamental failure of governance.
Surely grounds for pursuing politicians, regulators, senior civil servants, bank directors and major property developers might include possible breach of trust, dereliction of duty, failure to manage, incompetence, negligence, fraudulent or reckless trading, dodgy tax activities, misrepresentation, failure to disclose, lying, falsifying documentation, breach of fiduciary duty, abdication of duty of care and so on.
Perhaps passing the referendum on Dáil committees would (at last) facilitate the establishment of a proper investigation, with the assistance of whistleblowers, into what went wrong and who was primarily responsible, thus opening the scope for civil actions. – Yours, etc,