FORMER IRISH Life & Permanent (IL&P) chief executive Denis Casey has questioned, in a wide-ranging statement to gardaí, why the Department of Finance did not influence how Anglo Irish Bank reported the €7.45 billion deposits in its full-year results in December 2008.
Mr Casey is in the process of making a lengthy statement to the Garda investigation in which he claims the Central Bank and Financial Regulator were aware of the deposits which showed Anglo to be in a healthier position in September 2008 than it actually was.
He has queried why the department didn't raise the deposits with Anglo before the bank produced results showing the flattering effect of the deposits in December 2008 without disclosing them when the department became aware of them in late October. The department has said the deposits were to be investigated by the regulator. Mr Casey resigned over the deposits after they emerged publicly in February 2009. The Central Bank, the Financial Regulator and the Department of Finance have said that they were not aware of the nature of the transactions and would not have approved them had they known how they were structured.
Mr Casey has claimed that the Central Bank and regulator had encouraged the two banks to support each other under a "green jersey agenda" and had not raised any issue after they were notified of the deposits following the completion of the transactions.
The regulator didn't raise them as an issue until January 2009.
Mr Casey has said the department raised the the deposits with the regulator on October 24th, 2008, after concerns were expressed to Kevin Cardiff, a senior department official, by the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA). He has claimed in his statement that, according to Mr Cardiff's official diary, he met Anglo chief executive David Drumm on November 25th, 2008, about a week before Anglo presented their annual results which did not highlight the IL&P deposits. Meanwhile, speaking yesterday on RTÉ's This Week, Anglo's chairman Alan Dukes said the final cost of the banks would depend on how financial markets performed and the future and property trends. He defended the bank's estimate of the cost of Anglo at €25 billion some weeks ago. The higher expected cost of €29.3 billion and €34.3 billion in a worst-case detailed last week, was based on higher losses on loans moving to the NTMA. The worst-case involves property prices not rising for 10 years.
