Lenihan declines request for emergency meeting

FINANCE Minister Brian Lenihan and the Financial Regulator have declined requests to facilitate an emergency meeting of the Oireachtas finance committee on Monday.

Chairman of the committee Michael Ahern said Mr Lenihan and the regulator’s office would not be available if he called a special meeting.

He approached them yesterday at the request of the Labour Party. Mr Ahern expects both to be represented when the Oireachtas committees reconvene after January 7.

Mr Ahern said the circumstances which led to the resignations of three senior figures in Anglo Irish Bank were “very strange” and would be investigated.

Labour Party’s Joan Burton called for the emergency meeting as the future of Anglo Irish Bank looks increasingly tenuous.

She said the public and investors needed answers and the committee was an appropriate forum for this information to be examined.

She said there is a need for clarity on a number of perceived coincidences in the timeline of events.

Firstly the annual accounts for the bank were finalised on September 30, the day after the Government met senior bankers to discuss the bank guarantee scheme.

She asked if it was undeclared knowledge of Anglo Irish Bank’s additional exposure that prompted the €440 billion guarantee.

The department yesterday dismissed this out of hand. It said it only asked the regulator to examine the directors’ loans last week.

Ms Burton has also questioned why Anglo’s chairman Sean FitzPatrick made his resignation announcement just five hours after the Dáil adjourned for its six-week Christmas break.

The department said it did not know about the impending resignation until after the bank’s board of directors met this week.

Fine Gael’s Kieran O’Donnell, who also sits on the Finance Committee, said the Government had to take urgent action to protect taxpayers’ money which will be lost if Anglo Irish Bank collapses.

“We must ensure that the banking system is secure. The Government now need to move with immediate affect to take control of the day-to-day affairs of Anglo Irish,” he said.

Reaction from outside political circles was equally forceful in its demand for answers.

The Professional Insurance Brokers Association said every aspect on the legality of the loans would have to be investigated.

Chairman Jack Fitzpatrick said there was a plethora of issues to be resolved, including how the temporary loans were secured.

“We should remember that these seismic and irregular practices have had devastating financial consequences for shareholders who were very deliberately kept in the dark,” he said.

Separately the Irish Association of Investment Managers said it was disappointed at the circumstances and investors should expect the highest level of transparency.

And the Chartered Accountants regulatory board has confirmed it will investigate the actions of its members, including Sean FitzPatrick, to ensure all its rules were met.

It said the inappropriate loans would be examined in co-operation with the other regulatory bodies.