A retired National Irish Bank regional manager has told the High Court it "never crossed" his mind to consider, when bogus non-resident accounts were identified as existing within National Irish Bank branches in the 1990s, that Deposit Interest Retention Tax (DIRT) should have been deducted from those accounts and paid to the Revenue Commissioners.
Kevin Curran, who retired from NIB in 1997, said he had never considered the issue of retrospective liability in such circumstances. Nor, he believed, had others in NIB management or in audit. There were "no instructions" in that regard.
He agreed various audit reports in the 1990s had warned of serious consequences in terms of Revenue penalties where DIRT was not paid when it should have been. However, Mr Curran said, the question of taxation was dealt with by tax managers, not by him. He had no authority to raise the matter of retrospective payments.
He said he was never aware, until the inspectors who investigated the affairs of NIB reported in July 2004, that there was a "widespread problem" of bogus non-resident accounts within NIB in the 1990s. He said he was travelling 30,000 miles a year and "was relying very heavily on people in the team and head office" to see "the bigger picture". His business was the northwest region; he did not address the bigger picture.
He agreed he had received audit reports during the 1990s indicating problems with non-resident accounts in some branches in his region, but said he had directed that those problems be addressed and believed they had been addressed. The majority of fictitious accounts surfaced in 1995/96, he said.
He agreed he had written to all managers in his region in 1992 asking them to confirm that all was in order in their branches. He agreed that the NIB Castlebar branch was among the branches that reported all was fine, and also agreed that it had emerged in 1993 that everything in the Castlebar branch was not fine.
Mr Curran was being cross-examined by Maurice Collins SC in the continuing hearing of the Director of Corporate Enforcement's (DCE) application for an order restraining Mr Curran from involvement in the management of any company on grounds of unfitness.
The application relating to Mr Curran (61), of Avondale Court, Blackrock, Co Dublin, is one of nine brought by the DCE against various NIB executives based on the findings of inspectors Tom Grace and John Blayney in their July 2004 report following their investigation into the tax evasion scandal of the 1990s in NIB. The inspectors found Mr Curran was among senior managers who were aware of improper practices and failed to take appropriate or adequate action to stop them.
Mr Curran has rejected all those findings and also denies that he is unfit to be involved in the management of any company. The hearing before Mr Justice Roderick Murphy continues on Tuesday.
