Inquiry to be denied key Anglo documents

KEY documentation from the night the Government decided to include Anglo Irish Bank in its guarantee scheme will not be released to the banking inquiry.

The Government has insisted that such documentation is sensitive and beyond the scope of the inquiry, and therefore will not be released.

The guarantee put in place in September 2008 covered all the deposits and liabilities in six financial institutions – AIB, Bank of Ireland, Irish Life and Permanent, Irish Nationwide, EBS and Anglo.

On Wednesday morning in the Dáil, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore accused Taoiseach Brian Cowen of “economic treason” for including Anglo in the guarantee scheme.

Mr Gilmore said Anglo was merely a “piggy bank” for property speculators, and suggested the only reason it was included in the scheme was to protect friends of Fianna Fáil.

Mr Cowen angrily denied the charge, saying he was beholden to nobody.

He subsequently issued a statement reiterating that the decision made on the night of September 29 “was in line with the advice provided directly at the meeting by the Governor of the Central Bank, the Financial Regulator, and senior officials of the Department of Finance and the National Treasury Management Agency”.

Mr Cowen said that advice, in turn, was based on “extensive analysis and monitoring” conducted by these authorities over the preceding weeks.

“The documentation supporting that analysis that is held by those institutions will be made available to those conducting the relevant inquiry into the ‘banking crisis’ should they deem it relevant.”

At first glance, his statement appeared to suggest that key documentation generated on the night of September 29 and in the early hours of September 30 would be released to the banking inquiry. But a government spokesman said this would not be the case.

Mr Cowen’s pledge to release documentation refers solely to paperwork created in the weeks leading up to September 29/30 by the authorities he mentioned, the spokesman said.

Events of September 29/30 – and key documentation from those two days – will remain beyond the scope of the inquiry.

This is despite Mr Gilmore’s argument that the only way for the Government to prove it acted in the national interest by guaranteeing Anglo was to release all the documentation relating to the decision.

Earlier this year, the Information Commissioner ruled that records of two key meetings on September 29 should remain secret.