Articles led to bank U-turn and red-faced minister

THE two articles which won awards for Irish Examiner journalists at yesterday’s ESB National Media Awards ceremony in Dublin provided a major embarrassment for a leading financial institution and a senior Government minister.

Irish Examiner business correspondent Conor Keane forced the country’s second-largest banking group into a major U-turn with a story published last March about the Bank of Ireland.

The article highlighted how the bank had emerged as the major financial backer of a company involved in the distribution of pornographic magazines.