Prosecution case against former Anglo Irish Bank officials ends

The prosecution case against three former Anglo Irish Bank officials on trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court has finished.

Tiarnan O'Mahoney (56) of Glen Pines, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, Aoife Maguire (63) of Rothe Abbey, South Circular Road, Kilmainham, Dublin and Bernard Daly (67) of Collins Avenue West, Whitehall, Dublin have been charged with trying to hide accounts, connected to the former chairman of the bank, Seán FitzPatrick, from Revenue between March 2003 and December 2004.

They have pleaded not guilty.

On Tuesday morning, the court heard Mr O’Mahoney told gardaí that Mr FitzPatrick never asked him to do anything he was uncomfortable with.

He was asked by gardaí, during an interview in October 2013, whether he was close to Mr FitzPatrick or had “more than a working relationship” with him.

“No, I doubt anyone had,” he responded.

Mr O'Mahoney also denied asking a bank official not to send details of an account of John Peter O'Toole, brother-in-law of Mr FitzPatrick, to revenue in 2003. And he denied telling Brian Gillespie, former head of compliance, that he was no longer required to work for a team returning details of non-resident accounts to revenue, because he was unwilling to remove one of the names from the returns.

Det Sgt Daniel McGinty, Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation, told the court Mr O'Mahoney was interviewed by arrangement in the presence of his solicitor, Michael Staines. He had been chief operations officer at Anglo and left in September 2004, the court heard.

He was asked why an email sent to Zita Vance, appointed to head a team to assist revenue during an audit of non-resident accounts in 2003, said Ms Maguire, also involved with the team, would be working directly for him.

Mr O’Mahoney said he could only assume she was doing something else. Everyone on the team was also doing other things, he said.

Asked why Ms Maguire was not in the same office as the team, he said he had no idea. Asked if he had a relationship with her in connection with the team’s work, he said “not particularly”.

Gardaí told Mr O’Mahoney that Ms Vance had said he asked her if she would be willing to remove a name from the list to go to revenue.

“No, that didn’t happen,” Mr O’Mahoney responded.

Gardaí said Ms Vance also said she told Mr O’Mahoney she was uncomfortable with that and he agreed she should no longer be part of the project team.

“No, that didn’t happen,” Mr O’Mahoney responded.

Asked if Ms Vance and he ever had “an issue”, he said “the usual things over a promotion”. Ms Vance wanted to advance and may have felt he hadn’t helped in that, he said.

Asked if he recalled telling Mr Gillespie he did not want Mr O’Toole’s account to be sent to revenue, he denied he had done that. “I didn’t instruct him not to do that,” he said.

He also denied that he told Mr Gillespie he was no longer part of the team, after he had said to Mr Daly that he wouldn’t be willing to remove a name from the revenue list. “No, that’s not true because I didn’t ask him,” Mr O’Mahony said.

Asked if Mr FitzPatrick was anxious to ensure Mr O’Toole’s account was not returned to revenue, he said “he never said that to me”.

Gardaí asked Mr O’Mahony if he had passed on a list of accounts to Ms Maguire, that were to be deleted, or if he knew Ms Maguire had asked for accounts to be deleted. “I wasn’t aware and she wasn’t requested by me,” Mr O’Mahoney said.

He also said he had no connection with Suzie Ltd, and Carnahalla Ltd did not ring a bell.

He also did not know anything about loan facility letters, one addressed to those companies, and one addressed to himself and to Mr FitzPatrick, for $1.2 million, in December 1997. “I haven’t seen this before,” he told gardaí, when shown the documents.

Dominic McGinn SC, for the prosecution, told Judge Patrick McCartan his case had concluded.

The defence teams have yet to be heard.