The former president of Coca-Cola, Mr Donald Keough, has called on the Irish-American business and financial community to take the lead in restoring public faith and trust in capitalism following the recent corporate scandals, writes Conor O'Clery, in New York

Speaking to financial leaders in New York, Mr Keough said many people ranked Wall Street executives "just below used-car salesmen" and that "we have to re-earn our trust".

Mr Keough, who is chairman of Allen & Co, was addressing the annual Wall Street 50 awards, hosted by Irish America magazine and Financial Dynamics.

Mr Keough blamed the practice of making the share price more important than good management for turning chief financial officers into "chief fiddling officers" in companies such as Enron, which was run by Mr Kenneth Lay.

Chief financial officers before the early 1980s were "smart and tough and mean", whose responsibility was to see that there was no "hanky-panky" going on, Mr Keough said.

Now they were often told to bring about a rise in share price, with the instructions "get, it, find it, and don't tell me how".

Mr Keough, who is a member of the Taoiseach's Economic Advisory Board, said chief financial officers needed to be protected by their board and to "simply tell the truth".

Extolling the entrepreneurial spirit of Irish and Irish-American business leaders, he said: "The culture of decency and honesty starts at the top".

He also hit out at the practice of companies declaring "pro-forma" or hypothetical earnings, which he described as "the greatest con in history".

Mr Keough recalled that the investor Mr Warren Buffet told him recently that he had shot a "pro forma" golf round of 72 by "reconstructing" 18 putts.

At the event, Mr Declan Kelly, president and chief executive of Financial Dynamics, announced that his company, which has offices in several European and American cities, including Dublin and New York, would be expanding soon to India and Russia.