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IBRC Investigations

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 July 2013

Tuesday, 16 July 2013

Questions (221, 225, 272)

Pearse Doherty

Question:

221. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Finance further to the statement made by former public interest director at Anglo Irish Bank, Mr. Alan Dukes, that decisions about evidence to be given to investigations into the banks were made at board meetings and that minutes from those meetings were made available to his Department and the Central Bank, if he will state, categorically, that those minutes did not contain references to recorded telephone conversations of bank employees; if he will also confirm whether members of his Department read the minutes of the bank's meetings; and if he is satisfied to stand by his statement that his Department was unaware of the tapes made at Anglo Irish Bank. [34299/13]

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Pearse Doherty

Question:

225. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Finance if the minutes of all board meetings held at Anglo Irish Bank following its nationalisation, and subsequently the minutes of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation board meetings are a matter of public record; if these minutes will be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas; or if these minutes have been seized as part of the ongoing criminal investigation into events at Anglo Irish Bank. [34303/13]

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Pearse Doherty

Question:

272. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Finance the papers relating to and furnished to directors at Anglo Irish Bank board meetings provided for the Department of Finance or the Central Bank following the bank guarantee in September 2008; if these papers referenced the existence or content of recordings made at Anglo Irish Bank on employees' telephone lines; if the papers make reference to the Garda requesting these tapes; and the dates the papers were received. [34943/13]

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Written answers

I propose to take Questions Nos. 221, 225 and 272 together.

As the Deputy will appreciate a vast quantity of information in relation to IBRC was provided to and held by the Department of Finance on a monthly basis as part of its normal engagement with the bank; these included monthly management reports, financial and other presentations, internal and external auditor reports, external adviser reports and monthly Board papers which frequently extended to hundreds of pages. In relation to the Board packs, specifically these were provided to the Department on a monthly basis since August 2011. Officials from the Department of Finance monitored this information extensively and relied on it as part of their on-going engagement with the bank.

The Board papers would have contained many references to the efforts being made by the bank in dealing with the legacy issues relating to Anglo Irish Bank and INBS and also the ongoing compliance with all investigations into the bank. These would have included the various documentation and other requests received by the ODCE, GBFI, CARB etc. in the context of their investigations. As indicated in my response to Parliamentary Question No. 220 on 2 July last, IBRC provided the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation audio recordings in respect of 18 employees of the bank whose lines were recorded in 2010.

Neither I nor my Department have any role in the ongoing Garda or other regulatory investigations into Anglo Irish Bank or any other Irish Bank. It would be completely inappropriate for the Department of Finance to act outside its legal powers and interfere with any investigation that could compromise potential future criminal or civil investigations by the bodies responsible under statute.

As the Deputy will be aware all debts owing to IBRC remain due and enforceable following the liquidation of the bank; in that context I am advised that the minutes of the board meetings of IBRC are not a matter of public record as they contain a large amount of material which could be considered legally privileged or commercially sensitive, even following the liquidation of the bank.

However this documentation will obviously be available to any banking inquiry which may be set in the future. The Government is determined to ensure the public is informed about what happened in Irish Banks and has published the Houses of the Oireachtas (Inquiries, Privileges and Procedures) Bill which, once enacted, will provide the legal framework for such a banking inquiry to be held within the current constitutional parameters.

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