A former senior executive of AIB, Mr Tony Spollen, yesterday blamed his fraught relationship with Mr Gerry Scanlan on the fact that he had refused to alter an audit report at the request of the bank's chief executive.
An interruption by counsel for AIB, Mr Dermot Gleeson SC, and a ruling by the chairman, Mr Jim Mitchell, to the effect that he might be straying outside the scope of the DIRT inquiry prevented the former AIB group head of internal audit from continuing to speak.
Mr Spollen's statement was preceded by a formal clarification from AIB, through Mr Gleeson, who said that the bank did not believe that Mr Spollen had had any role in leaking a bank document to the Sunday Independent, a matter which had been "touched on obliquely" at the inquiry.
Mr Spollen was also interrupted when he asserted that the issue which "drew the line" for himself and Mr Scanlan was a failed share issue in AIB and underwriting. "It went badly wrong and, rather than face the music and admit it, the bank had been left with an underwriting stick (sic). What happened was the shares were put into the widows' and orphans' accounts, into the staff pension fund accounts. The Stock Exchange was never informed," he told the committee.
Mr Gleeson interrupted at that point to plead that, while he did not want to interfere with "any rights of speech that he [Mr Spollen] might have here", the matters on which he [Mr Spollen] was seeking to elaborate were "matters on which I have no instruction". They did not appear to be within the committee's terms of reference, counsel said. He suggested that Mr Spollen should consult with the committee's legal advisers "or give some intimation of what's in question".
Mr Mitchell agreed that it was important that the hearing should stay within its terms of reference. He offered Mr Spollen the chance to consult privately with the legal advisers, "then we can allow you another opportunity to make a statement."
Earlier Mr Spollen said: "Mr Scanlan's performance yesterday was the straw that broke the camel's back". He had sat up all night thinking about this, he told the committee. He had felt "a little bit emotional", he said, because his wife had not been well.
Mr Spollen referred to his notes: "He [Mr Scanlan] said he found out in 1999 that there was a major problem with bogus accounts." That was long after "everybody out in the street" had heard about it. "He then produced letters written to me, but which he hadn't sent to me, eight years after the event."
Mr Spollen told the committee: "It was either him or me."
The "cheapest shot" of all, Mr Spollen said, was to suggest that he believed there was some kind of conspiracy by all the management of the bank against him. "Nothing could be further from the truth", he asserted.
It had not been easy for him when his children saw his departure from AIB reported in the newspapers and asked for an explanation.