POLITICAL LINKS:MANAGEMENT AT Anglo Irish Bank were regarded by staff at the Financial Regulator as "slick and buccaneering" but not as presenting a large or imminent risk, according to the Honohan report.
Close ties between Anglo senior management and politicians could not be excluded from playing a part in them continuing in office for several months after the September 2008 bank guarantee.
“Although it became quite clear to top Financial Regulator decision-makers that senior Anglo figures were well-liked in political circles, and it cannot be excluded that this played a part in their subsequent continuation in office for some months after September, there was, until very late in the day, no perceived need to take regulatory action against them,” it states.
Regulatory staff viewed former Irish Nationwide chief executive Michael Fingleton as “an overly dominant figure that needed to be surrounded by a stronger governance structure”.
“While it was understood by all that he was politically well-connected, the failure to resolve the issue is not attributed by anyone involved to his having a privileged status,” the report adds.
While “unconscious factors may have been at work”, regulatory management and directors agreed there was no evidence of political representations being made on Mr Fingleton’s behalf “aimed at influencing regulatory decisions”.
Dr Honohan’s report says that while it is easy to imagine that senior regulators “might have instinctively and almost unconsciously shied away from aggressive action to restrain politically connected bankers and developers during a runaway property boom, no evidence has been presented suggesting that this was the case”.
He says the wisdom of leaving senior management in the banks after September 2008 while providing “an open-ended guarantee to two institutions, which – it should have been clear – were on the road to insolvency, does not seem to have been considered”.
