THE FORMER CHAIRMAN of the now defunct Anglo Irish Bank has said that he cannot comment on the material that was handed over to authorities in 2009 because of potential court cases.
Alan Dukes has told TheJournal.ie that the Central Bank and the Department of Finance were “perfectly aware” that an investigation into the toxic bank was being carried out by the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation and the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) as far back as 2009.
“They started their investigation in 2009 and all that information was handed over during the course of that investigation,” he said.
“The Central Bank was perfectly aware that the investigation was going on, as was the Department of Finance and we’re not making any comment about that because all of that material is evidential material in relation to pending litigation.”
Dukes was appointed public interest director at the bank in 2008 and later became its chairman as it was merged with Irish Nationwide and renamed Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) which has since been liquidated.
He said yesterday that all of the relevant information that was sought by authorities was handed over to them and insisted that any suggestions that information was held back were “absolutely wrong”.
Yesterday Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald accused Dukes of “singing dumb” over the existence of the tapes.
The government has confirmed that millions of electronic documents and around 5,000 paper documents have been seized by authorities as part of their investigation.
But Dukes said yesterday: “The bank complied fully with all the requests that were made of it and handed over all the information that was required, requested, and we can’t comment on any of it because it’s evidential material in the context of potential litigation.”
On the “singing dumb” accusation, Dukes repeated that “we had to be very careful not to prejudice in any way the course of that investigation or the outcome of it”.
He said he would “absolutely” be prepared to testify before any banking inquiry, saying he is “perfectly aware” of his and the IBRC board’s obligations.
“We don’t reminding of them and we have cooperated with every investigation that we have been asked to cooperate with and any suggestion to the contrary is pure mischief,” he said.
Asked if he felt other former Anglo executives, including US-based former CEO David Drumm, should cooperate with any inquiry, Dukes said that he would not comment on that as it may prejudice any investigation.
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