The former non-executive chairman of AIB, Mr Peter Sutherland, had no intention of putting his friend, the bank's head of internal audit, on notice that he was being transferred, he told the inquiry yesterday.
Mr Sutherland, who was responding to Mr Denis Foley for the Public Accounts Committee, said he did not wish to pre-empt any questions in this regard from Mr Pat Rabbitte who had suggested earlier that he might have been seeking "some way of promoting Tony Spollen out of a problem".
As regards the phone-call to Mr Spollen's home that had been the subject of much conjecture by Mr Rabbitte, Mr Sutherland said he had wanted to clap his friend on the back and say "Well done", after the chairman of the audit committee and fellow bank director, Mr Jim Culliton, told Mr Sutherland "how pleased he was with the function of the internal audit department".
He had no idea of an impending transfer in the pipeline for his former Gonzaga school friend. With regard to the purported upgrading of the internal audit department, he would not have known of this in his role as chairman. "But it would have been an underlying fact that the enhancement of the internal audit function was something that Jim Culliton would have been anxious about."
Mr Spollen, he knew, was at all times concerned about the independence of the internal audit department, he told the hearing.
The bank's chief executive, Mr Gerry Scanlan, was happy when the DIRT issue was under control, said Mr Sutherland. Agreement had been reached with the Revenue Commissioners: "Whether it should have come through the audit committee at an earlier date is debatable. Mr Spollen had explained to the committee that it had only become an issue of acute importance in January 1991."
The links between the DIRT issue as dealt with by the bank and Mr Spollen's concerns were "inextricable", he added. There were issues that he believed were of major importance and had to be addressed: "It was the mix of these issues that suggested to me, with the support of the chief executive, that the best way to deal with this was to have a special sub-committee and, with his agreement, to exclude the chief executive, to examine the various issues."
This sub-committee met five times, said the former AIB chairman, and considered a number of important issues. "Only one of those was DIRT."