Former NIB senior official disqualified by High Court hearing

A RETIRED senior manager with National Irish Bank has been disqualified by the High Court from involvement in the management of a company on grounds of unfitness, arising from the findings of the investigation into tax evasion scandal in the bank during the 1990s.

Mr Justice Roderick Murphy ruled that Frank Brennan, of Ardglas, Dundrum, Dublin, was part of the senior management within the bank responsible over the entire 10-year period of the investigation, for not just a “failure of control” but for “ignoring or facilitating tax evasion”.

The judge said he accepted Mr Brennan was “genuinely shocked” when he heard two RTÉ television exposes of bogus non-resident accounts and of fictitious accounts (“for which he bore no responsibility”, the judge added).