A former law agent of AIB, who was involved in vetting a press statement in 1983 denying Mr Charles Haughey owed £1 million to the bank the previous year, said yesterday the statement was "a little deceitful".
Mr E. Rory O'Connor, who was the bank's group law agent between 1969 and 1989, said he believed he saw the document "in draft form when it was produced to me for vetting prior to release".
The statement, published in the Evening Press on February 1st 1983, referred to an article in the paper by a special correspondent on January 28th that year. The statement said a claim in the article that Mr Haughey owed the bank around £1 million the previous year was "so outlandishly inaccurate" it felt compelled to say so publicly.
Mr O'Connor said the parts of the statement dealing with the legal position of the bank and its duty of confidentiality could be attributed to him. However, the paragraph denying the accuracy of the newspaper article could not be attributed to him.
Mr O'Connor said that he would not have written the paragraph "unless I wished to engage in cleverality . . . because in one sense it was accurate. In another sense, it would be a little deceitful".
He said it was accurate in the sense that Mr Haughey's debt had been reduced from £1.14 m to £110,000 three years, rather than one year, previously.
He admitted, however, that if the bank's concern was to curtail the dissemination of inaccurate information, it should not have issued the statement. He added the word "outlandishly" was "not part of my vocabulary".
Mr O'Connor said that to the best of his recollection the statement was brought to him by Mr Kevin Burke, who was head of the group communications office, set up in the early 1980s.
Mr Bryan Sheridan, counsel for AIB, informed the tribunal that Mr Burke died last June.
Mr O'Connor also said he was not aware of Mr Haughey's debt in specific terms, other than that it had been settled for £750,000 with a £110,000 leftover debt.
He added it was possible he had vetted the statement prior to the Evening Press article of January 28th and that someone had added the paragraph denying Mr Haughey's debt at a later date.
His recollection was that at the time he was consulted "the publication of this article was imminent, not that it had actually happened, and that this was, in a sense, a pre-emptive strike."
In relation to the bank's policy on confidentiality, Mr O'Connor said there were situations where it might legitimately divulge a customer's affairs.
He said, however, the press release in itself was not a breach of confidentiality as the customer was not named but instead referred to as "a well-known figure".
He admitted, however, the statement could only have been referring to Mr Haughey as it mentioned the article in the Evening Press and the amount of the debt.
Later, Mr Bob Ryan, a former public relations manager at AIB, denied any involvement in the statement.
He said the press release was unusual in a number of respects. First, it had no contact name enclosed. Second, it was not written on public relations office headed notepaper. Instead, the words "public relations office" were typed under the letterhead.
Furthermore, Mr Ryan said the statement used language which would not have been used by the press office.
He said the office had received numerous inquiries over a number of months about Mr Haughey's relationship with the bank. These came from two journalists in particular, including the one who wrote the Evening Press article.
Mr Ryan said "while we wouldn't comment, or at least wouldn't confirm or deny the story that he was getting, I let it be known to, I think if I remember it correctly, Mr Burke, that these queries were being made."
He said the group communications office, which Mr Burke headed, was established around 1980. He said in its early years it operated on an informal basis and probably didn't have its own headed notepaper.
Mr Ryan, who was appointed PR manager of the bank in 1970 and retired in 1986, added he knew Mr Haughey was leader of the Opposition at the time and that he was having difficulties within the Fianna Fail party.
