Former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Seán FitzPatrick was this afternoon released from custody without charge after being held for over 30 hours for questioning.
Wearing a navy blazer, a blue shirt and a pink tie, Mr FitzPatrick was escorted by six gardaí from Bray Garda station through a substantial media scrum and into a waiting Volkswagen Golf.
Gardaí said a file is being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions after the businessman was released without charge.
Mr FitzPatrick was arrested early yesterday after members of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation called to his home in Greystones, Co Wicklow, at 6.15am in an unannounced visit.
The former chairman of the now nationalised bank was taken to Bray Garda station and detained under Section 10 of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001.
The arrest is the first high-profile detention of a senior banking figure under the Act, which can be used to deal with “white collar” crimes, including false accounting.
Gardaí detained Mr FitzPatrick for almost 31 hours in total. His detention was earlier extended twice – for six hours before lunchtime and for a further 12 hours yesterday evening.
His questioning was suspended for several hours after midnight to allow him to sleep. Questioning resumed this morning, and Mr FitzPatrick was released shortly before 2pm.
Mr FitzPatrick is the first executive to be arrested and questioned arising out of the 18-month-old financial crisis, during which his former bank was taken into State ownership in January 2009 following revelations he had concealed loans of up to €122 million at the bank.
A computer and a large quantity of documents were taken from Mr FitzPatrick’s home yesterday during a search, the warrant for which was obtained on Tuesday. He had no prior warning that he was to be arrested and his home searched.
It is understood that Mr FitzPatrick (61) was questioned on a range of issues being examined by gardaí and the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE).
The Garda and ODCE are investigating three issues at Anglo:
the concealment of loans owing by Mr FitzPatrick which were transferred off the books of Anglo using short-term loans from Irish Nationwide Building Society over an eight-year period;
the lodgement of €7.45 billion in short-term deposits by Irish Life Permanent into Anglo over its financial year-end in September 2008;
the so-called “golden circle” share transaction in which 10 long-standing clients of Anglo purchased a 10 per cent stake in the bank – using loans from the bank – from businessman Sean Quinn.
Mr FitzPatrick resigned as chairman of Anglo in December 2008 after it emerged he had concealed loans by transferring them to Irish Nationwide Building Society.
The transfers “did not in any way breach banking or legal regulations”, he said, but admitted they were “inappropriate and unacceptable from a transparency point of view”.
Anglo issued legal proceedings against Mr FitzPatrick last week to recover loans of €70 million.
Mr FitzPatrick, with Anglo’s chief executive David Drumm, spearheaded the growth of the bank into Ireland’s third largest lender during the boom through its financing of property developers and investors.