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THE STATE WROTE off €9 million more on the sale of Siteserv by IBRC than was previously suggested, according to newly-discovered documents from the Department of Finance.
Minutes of an IBRC board meeting from 15 March 2012 disclose that the company was sold to the Denis O’Brien-owned Millington for €45 million with a €5 million pay-out to shareholders as part of the deal.
According to the minutes, this amounted to a total writedown of €119 million, more than the previously reported figure of €110 million.
The minutes state:
Following consideration the board approved the proposal as presented namely (i) to proceed with the sale of Siteserv plc for €48 million (with net proceeds arising for the bank of €44.3 million) with (ii) a write-off of the balance of facilities of €119 million following the sale, however noting that the this was circa €10 million in excess of the current impairment provision.
The minutes were published on the department’s website last night after a filing error resulted in them only being discovered as officials compiled responses to FOI requests.
The filing error was played down by department sources last night who insisted that the discovery did not change the substance of what Finance Minister Michael Noonan previously told the Dáil, only a point of fact.
Noonan has maintained that he was only made aware of the Siteserv transaction after it was approved by the board of IBRC on 15 March 2012.
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The same minutes also disclose that IBRC’s former head of asset management, Richard Woodhouse – who managed Denis O’Brien’s loans with IBRC – was present for the same 15 March meeting where the sale was discussed.
This would appear to contradict what Alan Dukes, the former IBRC chairman, said in a lengthy press conference on 24 April.
Dukes said at that time that Woodhouse was kept out of discussions over the Siterserv deal “as he also managed the relationship between the bank and Mr O’Brien”.
Contacted this evening, Dukes told TheJournal.ie that Woodhouse had been kept out of the discussions about the Siteserv process and he did “not play any part in putting the final proposal together”.
“He was at the board meeting where the decision was made, but he was there on another issue before the board, which was coming from the bit of the bank he was in charge in.”
Dukes also drew attention to the minutes stating that Woodhouse informed the board of a letter from Virgo Capital “attesting to the fairness of the sales process which had been followed to date” in relation to Siteserv.
Speaking today, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said he found the department’s explanation for the missing board minutes “difficult to comprehend”.
He claimed the department had made a “deliberate attempt” to prevent this news from getting out. He said there had been engagements between officials in IBRC and the department going back to 2009, according to his sources.
Martin added: “The way this continues to be handled falls well short of what the public expect. The Government clearly hope that they have drawn a line under the crisis with the announcement of a Commission of Inquiry. But the efforts we have seen to mislead the public have actually raised yet more questions to which we need answers.”
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I think he means a Judge handpicked by the government who will conduct an investigation within the terms of reference decided by the Minister for Finance.
And when he said the first thing about it he was in a solicitor’s office …
What was the name of the solicitor’s Office ?
A big U.S.C. tax-write off for the person that gets the answer – (E.S.B. workers exempt due to sweet deal on U.S.C. – and don’t have me having to go and get an interlocutory Injunction )
Don’t the 4 Parties look distinctly un – republican since they all supported Irish Water in the first place …and still the meters go in …
I told ye Sinn Fein that ye’re time was limited on getting an injunction to suspend the installation of water meters until what is now a judicial review – Sinn Fein Parliamentary Party – Republican ?
Enough Legal kudos or whit to run a Country ?
I wonder will the investigation include how the defunct siteserve was awarded so many government contracts.? Oh Kenny and FG. DOB’s other company I wonder no more.
Exactly my thoughts too Tony. Nothing is beneath them and the say the story was inaccurate could very well have meant that, ie, write-down was MORE than stated publicly..hence a lie..these lot really are just laughing at us all!!
Another point was DOB’s anger at the disclosures…I think he had been less than frank to others re his business ‘strength’, perhaps to banks/business partners in Caribbean etc and these revelations now show him to have lied and will cause him untold hassle behind the scenes as his true debt ratios become more and more publicly known!!
I can’t understand how the state would have any dealings with DOB after the tribunal found he basically bribed a minister to get second mobile licence where he made most of his fortune what the fûçk is wrong with this country
Quite simply he and others are still major benefactors/beneficiaries of such crony cabals, as a consequence cyclically returning gubberments led by the twinned cheeks of the same putrid arse that are Fianna Gael!!
Isn’t it funny that the enquiry the government first wanted to have where kpmg would investigate themselves by all accounts would not have been able to go into the department of finance. But now that they have been snookered and cornered themselves into an independent inquiry , this independent inquiry will be able to go into the department of finance that these missing files mysteriously appeared and were found , the day the government announce an independent inquiry. Imagine that.
Did the State write it off as suggested above or did Alan dukes and the Board of I.B.R.C. write it off ?
Was there Departmental approval ?
The State of the place !
Missing Taoiseach – Missing State…….. We won’t see him until he is told by those we don’t see to announce the election – let’s go looking for them – Anglo Tapes point to Merrill Lynch …
Se what happens when you let children play with Pandoro’s Box ?
This is a horrible thing to happen, I remember when Enda was missing 17 files and they were found, I think he suggested that FF had accidentally dropped them behind a radiator but it turned out they were in a filing cabinet….of all places!
Now Noonan is having the same trouble…luckily the files have turned at the start of an investigation not being run by KPMG.
I suggest in future, looking for the files….in a filing cabinet.
All of this info was deliberately with held for good reason, they knew what they were doing was blurring the lines between perfectly legal but dubious ,and criminal behaviour. A list of the shareholders who received the payments from this sale should be made public along with amount of shares held and when they were purchased to cross reference with when the negotiations for the sale started and when the final agreement was signed off.. for all the talk of noonan being the bestever finance minister, if this went on with his full knowledge he should be resigning.
You would think fg were trying to outdo ff for sheer brazenness when it comes to feathering theirs and their cronies nests with all this DoB/ siteserv/ IW type sh!t hitting the fan
No one will be found answerable. FG never see a second term. Doubt that will change this time either. Endas silence speaks volumes. Corruption and the rape of the Irish tax payer is even by FG standards unbelievable. Change and change now is needed. Bring on election Enda if you have an ounce of decency left.
A G.E. now would just mean that FG’s chances of getting back into government would be higher, because the longer this goes on the greater the chance of further leaks about Siteserv/IRBC. FG/Labour will hold out at least until Budget 2016 in October. Just voting out FG or Labour won’t solve anything, because what happens in this country is determined by a type of politician and politics, not just one, two or three political parties (FF, FG and Labour). The public have to prove they will insist on something better and deserve something better at the next G.E. and I’m not optimistic.
Would have paid for a lot of pipe repair. But sure they don’t need his money when they can take it from our pockets easier, USC, etc. Sick of the carrying on
If you are in procession of information which you believe links michael Noonan to fraud I would suggest you go to the relevant authorities and share it with them and not pontificate on a message board.
Baz,Would that be anything like you and your ilk trying to call Catherine Murphy a liar and a thief. This government is up to its neck in so much corrupt practice, and i will keep saying it and saying it and saying it.
Lying and cronyism are definitions of corruption. There are countless examples out there. In any other Western democracy, the police would already be involved.
I had the misfortune to be working for a man who was very corrupt. There was no one he wouldn’t “roide” to get a contract or make a buck. It was disturbing to watch. What’s worse was the people around me who turned a blind eye, happy with their wages at the end of the week..
I think it’s admirable there is so much transparency unlike previous FF administrations. On the negative side we have so many muppets and uneducated wafflers like you who just create noise and like to be heard talking crap on subjects they clearly have no clue on.
BAZ – What you are saying so , is that it’s admirable to Lie ????
I was reared to always to the opposite of the way you think !
I’m shocked , beyond belief , that this Government with zero honesty or credibility could even contemplate carrying ?
It’s now proven that FG / Lab. have even sunk below FF’s standards of cronyism and corruption and that’s saying something – and you still stand by corruption and Gangsterism !
Shame on you and your Letterkenny Bus porkie pie stories !!!
Were it not for the hard work of Catherine Murphy we would all be still kept in the dark with how they are handing our money over to DOB as if it was confetti. Noonan actively tried to hide this from the public domain, despite numerous questions being asked of him. This only came to light because the government got wind of what Catherine Murphy has discovered, it also shows why DOB went to such lengths to keep his dealings under wraps.
This all went on with the knowledge of the government, and as such is a resigning matter. And all Kenny has to offer on it is that it is all hysteria.
When you think of all the petty penny pinching cutbacks to the disabled and poor members of our society this ten million extra is partly where it went. In essence taxpayers money isn’t used to help the disadvantaged it’s used as a kickback to the rich, that’s fine Gael for you, fascist to the core.
Ireland is the most corrupt country around, some1 has to hang for this,politicians, bankers are all in on it,they all get brown envelopes and look after each other,fine gael are as bad as the last shower
The trick is always to play with someone else’s money.
In Ireland, this generally means playing with the tax payers money and exploiting (or pillaging) the public purse.
I know the names of some of the “usual suspects” who specialise in raiding the State’s coffers but absence of freedom of expression in Ireland inhibits what I and most of us would say if we were permitted to.
“but absence of freedom of expression in Ireland inhibits what I and most of us would say if we were permitted to.”
If you think this is the case now Anthony wait until the Rabbitte and Higgins bills go through. Then all you will be able to say are “positive” things a la #talktojoan
Two people central to all this upped sticks and left the country in a mad hurry – Phil Hogan and Mike Aynsley. They both know Denis O’Brien very well. The very lucrative water metering contract was about to be awarded. Hogan needed someone he could trust to install the meters in the face of massive public opposition. Siteserv became available…. fill in the dots.
Every day since the corrupt super quango known as Irish Water began I believe we are further down the scale of becoming bigger joke than Zimbabwe and Russia as far as blatantly obvious banana republics go. You couldn’t make this sh*t up while the coalition bounce from one gotcha crisis to another.
The Irish establishment has this odd thing about files going missing, being stolen or catching fire, they always seem to be the ones they don’t want to ever be subject to FOI, the files about the actions of the CID during the civil war, the guards’ investigation on the Dublin Monaghan bombings, its dealings with the church, the various machinations of the banking system and its regulators, its almost as if their is a culture within the powerful and their willing servants of destroying information that could be a major embarrassment to the establishment or even incriminate them.
Its almost like the people that make, lobby for and enforce our laws are in fact, and have always been, above the law.
it’s very understandable why Fine Gael have never, ever been re-elected in their entire history. They can’t avoid controversy and attract undesirable deals like the DOB/ Lowry scam.
One or two more revelations and you’ll see them start to out each other. I heard that politicians from a few parties had their mortgage debts wrote of as a thank you for bailing out the banks. From what has been revealed in the last week, i’m starting to believe it.
This shows how very crucial FREEDOM OF INFORMATION is! Especially protected by the index of precendents which this govt wanted to replace with codes of practice which would make it as toothless with no recourse to the courts. Luckily that piece of slaughter did not get through. ‘The price of freedom is eternal vigilance’.
Sad thing is there will be no repercussions from this. People are idiots, they will continue to buy the Irish Independent and listen to Newstalk pretending it’s “an independent” alternative. The most likely thing is people will start voting for Fianna Fáil again which is probably the worst possible outcome. Ok we in Ireland aren’t that badly off, but there is never an excuse for lies, deception and most importantly corruption.
all government contracts must be removed from Dennis o Brien companies. Mr noonan must resign from office for not being honest in the dail. the office he holds must have full confidence from the people, it does not have that confidence from the people.
Tongue in cheek….but we need some INDEPENDENT body to delve very deep into this, i think Siteserv/IW is Ireland’s Qatar…the straw that broke the camel’s back…..
Knowing that that money was owned by the Irish people, can we bring IRBC to Court to get it back, and also put a few in jail while we are at it, then maybe they would think twice before doing something that
Does anyone remember why Dukes was appointed to Anglo’s board of directors? Because I don’t think he’s remembered since his appointment. He was a ‘public interest’ director. He only every speaks from the point of view of a normal director.
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