Leyden calls for top bankers to resign

SEANAD REPORT:A SENATOR has called for the resignation of top bank personnel and for the involvement of the Garda Fraud Squad in the investigation of newly revealed banking practices, while an Independent senator claimed the Government had bought a "pig-in-a-poke".

Terry Leyden (FF) said yesterday that the Government had been misled with regard to Anglo Irish Bank. Joining in criticism of the depositing of up to €7 billion by Irish Life and Permanent (IL&P) with Anglo Irish Bank, he said he believed that the management of IL&P had let down the staff. He called for the resignation of the chairman and the chief executive.

He said Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide had collaborated on the Seán FitzPatrick loans which had been transferred overnight and he called for the resignation of Irish Nationwide executive Michael Fingleton. “The Houses of the Oireachtas have been misled . . . The fraud squad should be brought in to what happened. People should be put on trial.”

Shane Ross (Ind) said nothing would surprise anybody about Anglo Irish bank and the activity it had been up to. There was probably a lot more to come from that source. He said he had never seen more obvious evidence of a cartel being run by the banks than the activity which had been reported by David Murphy of RTÉ.

“It is all very well for a cowboy bank like Anglo Irish Bank to carry on in this way . . . but Irish Life and Permanent is one of the pillars of the Irish banking, insurance and assurance world. The statement issued by that bank was utterly ridiculous and comical.”

Mr Ross said that if he were a shareholder of Irish Life and Permanent, he would “go bananas” to think that €7 billion of his money was going to help a rival which was in danger. He said they must ask who else was behaving in this way.

“Is the Bank of Ireland doing it or AIB, and vice versa? . . . It seemed that the Minister might be buying a pig-in-a-poke and that the annual reports being issued by the banks were works of fiction and creative art.”

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The sitting of the House was suspended twice as Opposition members expressed outrage at the failure of the Minister for Education to tell the Seanad about planned cuts in funding for children with special needs.

Frances Fitzgerald, Fine Gael leader in the Seanad, said it was a sham for Minister Batt O’Keeffe to address the House on Tuesday while at the same time sending letters to schools cutting vital services and not even mentioning it to Senators. Joe O’Toole (Ind) said the Minister had displayed a cowardly attitude in not feeling it necessary to mention something that would wreck lives of many people.