Irish prime minister promises inquiry after taped conversation reveals apparent attempt to mislead government into bailout
Ireland's prime minister, Enda Kenny, said Irish people were entitled to be angry about revelations that an executive at the firm that almost bankrupted the country boasted he had picked the €7bn (now £6bn) figure purportedly needed to rescue Anglo Irish Bank "out of my arse".
Taped phone calls between two senior executives at Anglo Irish have compounded suspicions that bankers lured the then Fianna Fáil-led government during the crash of September 2008 into a costly financial trap.
Irish taxpayers were eventually forced to hand over €30bn to save Anglo Irish Bank from collapse. The huge bailout resulted in the state going cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the EU to save the country from bankruptcy.
The audio recordings, obtained by the Irish Independent, are between Anglo's director of capital markets, John Bowe, and Peter Fitzgerald, head of the retail bank, in September 2008. Initially the bank asked Ireland's central bank for €7bn to prop up its parlous finances following the Irish property crash. Critics of the bailout have insisted Anglo executives always knew the figure would be far higher – ultimately more than four times higher.
On tape Fitzgerald asks Bowe how he arrived at the figure of €7bn, to which Bowe replies: "Just as Drummer [the then Anglo Irish Bank CEO David Drumm now in exile and disgrace in Boston] would say, 'picked it out my arse'."
Speaking in Dublin on Monday afternoon, the taoiseach said he was constrained in what he could say about the Anglo Irish Bank as a result of the continuing Garda Siochana criminal investigation into it.
However, Kenny promised that there would be a parliamentary banking inquiry, and said: "Believe you me, I understand the rage and the anger of so many people who have been affected by all of this."
He added: "I have made the point in the Dáil on many occasions that … I don't have any paperwork to advise me as to the conversations that took place between members of the government and the banks on the run-in to that period."
The taped conversation between the bankers tends to back up the view that Anglo Irish bankers knew €7bn would never be enough to save the bank but once they had hoodwinked the Dublin government into providing support the taxpayer would keep picking up the tab.
In their exchange, Bowe says: "The reality is that actually we need more than that. But you know the strategy here is you pull them in, you get them to write a big cheque and they have to keep, they have to support their money, you know."
On the Irish government getting entrapped by Anglo, Bowe adds: "If they saw the enormity of it up front … they might decide they have a choice. You know what I mean? They might say the cost to the taxpayer is too high. But … em … if it doesn't look big at the outset … if it looks big, big enough to be important, but not too big that it kind of spoils everything, then I think you have a chance."
The two bankers are also heard laughing and joking at a time when the bank was tottering on the brink of destruction. They are heard saying they hope the bank is nationalised so "we'd keep our jobs".
Bowe, who was approached over the weekend about the 2008 conversations, claimed the remarks were "off-the-cuff comments" and denied he was trying to mislead the state.
Fitzgerald released a statement through his solicitor saying: "I am not nor have I ever been aware of a strategy or intention on the part of the Anglo Irish Bank to mislead authorities in relation to the forecasted funding position of Anglo Irish Bank."
Despite the pair's denials, the taped conversations come at a critical time in the bank's history and will increase the pressure for a full parliamentary inquiry into the bank rescue deal, which cost the taxpayer a further €30bn after two other debt-ridden banks, the Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank, also had to be saved from collapse.
Anglo Irish Bank, which was the preferred lender for property speculators and builders, epitomised the rise and ignominious fall of the Celtic Tiger economy.
No senior Irish banker has so far been found guilty of any offence in any court.
