Retired NIB bank manager denies any wrongdoing

A RETIRED National Irish Bank regional manager has told the High Court it never crossed his mind to consider, when bogus non-resident accounts were identified as existing within National Irish Bank branches in the 1990s, that DIRT should have been deducted from the accounts and paid to the Revenue Commissioners.

Kevin Curran, who retired from NIB in 1997, said he had never considered retrospective liability in such circumstances. Nor, he believed, had others in NIB management or in audit considered so.

He agreed various audit reports in the 1990s had warned of serious consequences in terms of Revenue penalties where DIRT was not paid when it should have been, however, he said the question of taxation was dealt with by tax managers, not by him. He had no authority to raise the matter of retrospective payments.

He said he was never aware, until the inspectors who investigated the affairs of NIB reported in July 2004, that there was a widespread problem of bogus non-resident accounts within NIB in the 1990s. He acknowledged receiving audit reports during the 1990s indicating problems with non-resident accounts in some branches, but said he had directed those problems be addressed and believed they had been.

Mr Curran said he had taken the whole issue of breaches of the bank’s procedures and the State’s regulations very seriously.

Maurice Collins, SC for the Director of Corporate Enforcement (DCE) suggested that an internal memorandum circulated suggested that NIB’s concern was not that there were bogus non-resident accounts in its branches, but that the bank could be accused of knowing that the accounts were bogus.

Mr Curran said he had not interpreted the memo in that way. The memo stated declaration forms should not be accepted where the details given on such forms were clearly incorrect, Mr Collins said. This related to giving addresses such as ‘Mr X Main Street, London’.

Mr Curran said he would not have read the memo in the manner suggested. He said he and other management wanted the position changed not because it left the bank open to the charge of fraud but because it was fraud. The wording of the memo may have been badly put but the intention was to state that to open such accounts was wrong, he said.

Mr Curran was being cross-examined by Mr Collins in the continuing hearing of the DCE’s application for an order restraining Mr Curran from involvement in the management of any company on grounds of unfitness.

The inspectors made serious findings of improper practices in NIB which facilitated tax evasion and the levying of unwarranted fees and interest charges. They found Mr Curran was among senior managers who were aware of various improper practices and failed to take appropriate or adequate action to stop them.

Mr Curran has rejected all those findings and also absolutely denies he is unfit to be involved in the management of any company.

The hearing before Mr Justice Roderick Murphy continues on Tuesday.