Madam, – We have a Minister for Finance who commissioned a very important report on the big banks, but read only those parts that his officials marked for his attention. Does this indicate a Minister in control of his Department?
We have a chief executive of the Bank of Ireland who thinks he has met the need of the moment by accepting a reduction in his remuneration below €2 million.
I feel that I now live in a virtual muppet society. But unlike The Muppet Show, our muppet land seems to be without a script. I object to my nation being turned into the private lunatic asylum of mad bankers, profligate developers and justifiably enraged public servants.
We have a financial crisis of a depth that the Government has not yet fully revealed and I fear the present administration is not up to the job of coping with it. We need cool heads and fearless leadership. The present crew are a busted flush and my bet is that the duo of Eamon Gilmore and Joan Burton, with the assistance of Richard Bruton, are nearer fitting the bill for leadership, understanding and ability. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – In the past 24 hours I have heard both Micheál Martin and Brian Lenihan say that Government’s unpopularity is due to the hard decisions they have had to take to safeguard the future of the country.
They ignore — hopefully at their peril — the main reason we are angry and disillusioned with them, which is the soft options and bad decisions they took in the past and for which they are now unwilling to accept responsibility. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Please allow me, a chartered accountant, to use your newspaper to call publicly on Dr Liam O’Reilly to resign from his position as chairman of the Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board (CARB).
Its profile contains the following statement: “The objective of the board is to win, instil and sustain public confidence in the quality, transparency and independence of its regulatory functions, thereby enhancing public confidence in the integrity and quality of professional services provided by Chartered Accountants.”
Dr O’Reilly was chief executive of the Financial Services Regulatory Authority from 2003 to 2006 and must accept much of the responsibility for the failure properly to regulate the Irish banks. The already sceptical public will in my view have no faith in any regulatory process presided over by Dr O’Reilly. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – There is much derisory comment about Ireland’s financial institutions, and the inordinate remuneration of those who lead them and those who are forced abruptly to retire from them.
If I was the chief investment officer of a significant fund I would never invest in a company where a transaction involving billions of euro could take place without the direct and conscious sanction, in advance, of the board of directors. Their ignorance of such a transaction would reflect a grave and fundamental lacuna in corporate governance standards. If such titanic transactions can take place without their knowledge, how can a company’s board and auditors genuinely safeguard the interests of shareholders and other stakeholders, especially when the beneficiary of the transaction, in the case of Anglo Irish Bank, is seriously compromised and lacking in transparency, credibility and candour?
Common themes prevailing in many of the flawed institutions in Ireland, financial and ecclesiastical, are the absence of accountability, inadequate sanctions for those whose standards are found wanting and an apparent ignorance of vital information among those in charge. This makes their mandate as effective and secure as that of an fatigued and weary airline pilot attempting high altitude flying without adequate fuel.
The finessed response of the board of Irish Life Permanent to the €7 billion lodged in Anglo Irish Bank was self-serving, derisory and wholly inadequate. I would have expected the immediate resignation of the chairperson and chief executive, as well as the minnows directly involved — if not the entire board of that company.
I await, with interest, the observations of the Irish Association of Investment Managers and the Director of Corporate Enforcement on this entire matter. It will be interesting to see what legal consequences ensue in the light of the last annual report of Anglo Irish Bank. The country clearly cannot afford to spend another €500 million on a prolonged and rambling tribunal of enquiry in its search for equity, justice and punishment. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – If there is any lingering doubt that the ruling and business elites have still not grasped the new reality, then surely three observations will dispel that doubt. The first is the following from Gina Quin, chief executive of Dublin Chamber of Commerce (Letters, February 13th): “We aspire to the highest levels of corporate governance and provide support to businesses to ensure they operate to this high standard.”
This is simply not the case: some businesses here have long since adopted a policy of screwing what they can out of others.
Then we have the CEO of Bank of Ireland calmly telling us that he will take a hit and will have to do with just under €2 million in the coming year – and next the breathtakingly minimal actions announced by the board of ILP.
It must now be clear that the ruling and business elites are not capable of learning that greed is not and never was good. A large broom is our only salvation. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The Minister for Finance must have been more than a little concerned on Thursday when the Taoiseach thought it important to state publicly on that Brian Lenihan enjoyed his full confidence – less than three months after Mr Cowen expressed the same complete confidence in the then chief executive of Fás. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – There should be punishment for the guilty and, as W.S. Gilbert put it so succinctly in verse, it should fit the crime.
Therefore let the top brass in each bank where misdemeanours occurred be demoted to office cleaner status, given humble offices in the basements of their respective banks, and set to work to clear up the messes, with pay geared to results. On no account should they be allowed to retire with golden handshakes and retaining their ill-gotten bonuses.
The regulator who failed to regulate should be made overall responsible for overseeing this and for securing results.
This won’t happen, of course, but one can always dream. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Isn’t it time we admitted what a complete and utter failure we have made of this banana republic of ours?
We should pull down the shutters, turn off the lights and ask our dear neighbours across the water if they could possibly take us back. - Yours, etc,
Madam, – Can there be any reasonable explanation as to why it took the Minister for Finance almost four weeks to meet the senior management of ILP after learning about its €7 billion deposit with Anglo Irish Bank – and then only after the media broke the story? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – May I suggest that Fyffe’s be asked to sponsor the hunger marches that must now take place in the coming months. If all protesters are given a banana, they will at least have something to sustain them; the skins can be thrown at our bankers and our politicians, to remind them of their fall from grace; and our elevation to the level of a banana republic can fittingly celebrated. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I wonder if Brian Goggin has ever paused to consider that his newly reduced pay for this year is more than an average industrial worker earns in a lifetime? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – It warms my heart to hear that I have so much in common with Mr Brian Goggin. I too expect my salary to be “less than €2 million” this year. – Yours etc,
JOHNNY MURPHY,
Raheny,
Dublin 5.
A Chara, – Paul Doran (February 13th) claims that Minister for Health Mary Harney’s belief in a revision of the minimum wage “is typical of the politics of the defunct PDs”.
I would like to remind Mr Doran that it was Ms Harney and her party who introduced the minimum wage in April 2002. I hope Mr Doran will do some research before he launches another factually inaccurate attack on the lamentably absent politics of the Progressive Democrats. – Is mise,
PATRICK CARROLL,
Glendown Park,
Templeogue,
Dublin 6W.