All business deals must be transparent

On April 1 2005, an auspicious date if there ever was one, the New York Times stated that along with its reputation for innovation, Dublin has become known in the insurance industry as something of the Wild West of European finance, a perception that helped prompt the creation of the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority two years ago.

Despite its mandate for stricter oversight, the agency has yet to impose major sanctions on any institution even though Ireland has recently experienced several major banking scandals.

This article was in 2005 — several years before the economy completely collapsed predominately because of banking issues. Obviously, we learned nothing in the intervening years. Given recent events in relation to Siteserv, the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), billionaire media mogul Denis O’Brien, the Irish courts and Dáil privilege, one can only wonder if we’ve still not learnt anything.

For those of us not up to date with what happened; here is a short background. Siteserv was a company that was being sold by IBRC. Several bids were received, but for one reason or another were disqualified or were not acceptable to the decisionmakers in IBRC.

They decided that interests owned by Mr O’Brien offered the best return and sold the company to it. Part of the deal involved paying €5m to the shareholders to facilitate the sale. In the absence of any other facts, we can only accept that this was all above board and was the best return the owners of IBRC, the State, could expect.

However, others were not so sure about the way deals were being done by IBRC so they tried to get information from the Department of Finance. Finally, after a year or so of constant questioning, information was released that appeared to raise even further questions.

Finally, the Government agreed to an inquiry but nominated parties, who had already been involved in some part or other of the sale process, to undertake this inquiry. When people, reasonably suggested, that there might be one or two conflicts of interest about, the Government appointed a judge to ensure that the Chinese walls were not breached. On the surface it seems all above board? But do we know for sure?

In the meantime, other people not being happy with the Government’s response decided to do their own digging. Somehow, they got hold of what is purported to be details of Mr O’Brien’s personal banking details with IBRC. RTÉ got hold of the information and, being a news organisation, was in the process of discussing the issues concerned on air. Mr O’Brien was advised and took out an injunction against RTÉ.

Independent TD Catherine Murphy, who doggedly pursued the initial details of the Siteserv issue until finally getting a response, set out the new information in the Dáil using parliamentary privilege. Mr O’Brien felt that this could not be reported, despite the fact that matters discussed in the Dáil can and are reported regularly, and that if it was reported it was contrary to the injunction and he sought to have it resolved in the courts.

We can only wonder why Finance Minister Michael Noonan took so long to come clean on Siteserv.

We can only wonder why Mr O’Brien thought that his dealings with a bank that is owned by the State should be a secret in the specific circumstances. Obviously, we accept Alan Dukes’ statement that Mr O’Brien was treated like all the other IBRC customers.

Nevertheless, in circumstances like these, there needs to be a way that it is clear that the public is protected. That is why a truly independent review is an imperative. Otherwise suspicion will always be there.

On Tuesday afternoon, Mr Justice Donald Binchy disagreed with Mr O’Brien and decided that statements made under Dáil privilege could be reported and that the original injunction was not intended to cover statements made in the Dáil.

It was really the only decision the courts could make. We were on the verge of a potential Constitutional crisis. It would mean issues of public interest, that unseen powers wanted hidden, could not be addressed or dealt with in the future.

Paul Mills