Scandals show Ireland is den of thieves

WHEN you take the hype out of the responses to the NIB report it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Irish banking sector has been the spawning ground for an ethos in this country that regards tax evasion and contempt for the law as totally acceptable behaviour.

Recent banking scandals and the extensive nature of the DIRT scandal also bear out this very point.

Implicit also in what has evolved in terms of banking practice and tax evasion in this once renowned island of saints and scholars is that the country has turned into a den of thieves.

There was a time when theft was regarded as wrong and it was generally discouraged.

Remember too that in the bad old days when there was little money kicking around this economy, accountants would devise schemes to get round any new tax gathering devices introduced in the Budget.

While it was within the law, it demonstrated that Irish people had an aversion to paying tax to the State.

Some of that aversion may have deep historical roots, but that doesn’t take from the fact that we were prepared to go to any lengths to avoid paying over what was rightfully due.

There may be grey areas where the State is too intrusive and does overcharge. That, however, is a different issue.

What we have been dealing with, in the main, over the past 15 years is a banking system that colluded in tax evasion on behalf of its clients and a system that has been pretty corrupt across a number of fronts.

We have been treated to top executives who evaded tax with the connivance of its own investment vehicle in AIB Group; failure to give proper notification to the Central Bank concerning foreign exchange matters and indeed failure for whatever reason by the bank to honour promises made to customers.

Instances of overcharging have also been unearthed and one cannot help but wonder how much more corruption has been buried never to be found somewhere in the deep recesses of the vaults of the major banks.

What is disturbing too is most of this would never have come to light but for the fact that some people blew the whistle on what was going on. How much more thieving and robbery is continuing to go on within the Irish banking sector unexposed?

The NIB list of 20 key managers who colluded with tax dodging, overcharging of customers and the raiding of customer accounts does nothing to reassure the ordinary decent individual.

Another serious question has to be raised as well.

Surely if persons are found to have broken the law and in some instances implicated themselves through their evidence, they should be open to criminal prosecution under the law.

Under the current legal system it seems highly unlikely that criminal prosecutions can be brought against those who took part in the internal NIB investigation.

The evidence they gave cannot be used against them. This is another bad joke.

At best the most we can hope for is that those named and shamed will be prevented from holding directorships of other companies for a long time to come.

It’s unacceptable, that having taken six years to complete, not one of the individuals named can be called to account before our criminal justice system.

If the robbing was done with a gun all of them would end up in jail, but again we are back to the old story of the rich ultimately being protected by the law of the land for confessing to breaking it in the first instance. It’s a nice trick.

And concerns still exist that we are still only getting some of the facts as far as financial corruption in the banking sector is concerned.

It’s been a black week for Irish banks.