Moment of truth nears for small squad investigating bank scandal

THE most complex set of criminal investigations in the history of the State are reaching crunch time.

Yesterday saw the first set of charges reach the district court.

Meanwhile, the retiring director of corporate enforcement, Paul Appleby, said he is closing the book on a number of important decisions underpinning potential prosecutions into the activities at Anglo Irish Bank.

His office is scheduled to go back to the High Court today to seek a further extension of the time it was given to assess the electronic evidence it has access to. This is after being told by Mr Justice Peter Kelly in January that he was “taken aback” at the remarkably low number of investigators working on the case.

Mr Appleby last month defended the record of his staff. He said while more resources might have been welcome it would only have shortened the lengthy inquiry by a matter of months.

He said the protracted nature of the case, at which Justice Minister Alan Shatter has expressed frustration, was unavoidable regardless of the number of staff driving it.

Last year a lot of time was absorbed having to get an order to compel 18 reluctant witnesses to engage with the team. This included efforts to get members of the Maple 10 to talk.

Three-and-a-half years after Anglo was nationalised, what has been going on within the ODCE to ensure the patience the public has afforded this highly sensitive investigation has been justified?

The ODCE is a tight ship.

Typically there are the equivalent of 16 people, within a stretched office of 50 staff, compiling and sifting through evidence directly related to Anglo Irish Bank and the actions of its former directors.

The High Court has been told the Anglo probe is being worked on by 11 gardaí who are seconded from normal duties, and the remainder are ODCE staff. These are working in parallel to 18 gardaí at its bureau of fraud investigation.

Altogether they have studied more than 100,000 emails, documents, phone records, and bank statements. At least 350 witnesses were interviewed, resulting in lengthy statements running up to 150 pages.

Already 150 lever arch files have been delivered to the DPP, but work is still ongoing on three specific strands of inquiry.

Mr Appleby has seen to it that, despite controversy at the outset of its work, the ODCE has worked within its limited resources.

Staff have adapted. For instance, the seconded gardaí no longer take statements as other staff can do this.

And aside from the agreement to allow Mr Appleby to delay his own retirement, the ODCE has not been crying out for extra workers.

Only once, in mid-2009, did the ODCE look for permission to breach the wider recruitment embargo. This was to hire a retired High Court judge, on a part-time basis, to adjudicate on the use of certain documents in the Anglo investigation.

In 2005 Mr Appleby looked for permission to hire more people; this was not acted on by the government. In 2007 it was decided to add eight staff to the office. The Department of Justice also agreed to transfer some extra gardaí once the controversy surrounding Anglo surfaced and, at around the same time, five civilian employees were hired.

It means that at the moment there are, in effect, 50 full-time posts in the ODCE.

Reports by Mr Appleby have repeatedly said roughly one-third of its staff (16-18 people) are tied up on Anglo duty.

But the office is busy in spite of this project. In 2011 the ODCE decided on close to 2,000 reports it received into suspected breaches of company law.

In addition to its work on Anglo last year, it was also involved in complex investigations on cases such as National Irish Bank, DCC, Bovale Developments, and Ansbacher.

HOWEVER, questions have been asked not just on the amount of staff working on the case but also their qualifications for dealing with the complexity of transactions at the heart of the Anglo scandal.

A snapshot of the qualifications of those attached to the office was released under the Freedom of Information Act.

This particular document dated back to 2010. However, the same number of employees were based at the ODCE as there are now.

At the time there were eight gardaí based in the office; today there are 10, and they are all primarily involved with gathering evidence for Anglo.

In 2010, of the eight officers stationed at the ODCE, all had completed a detective training course and had a rank of detective garda or higher.

Two of these had qualifications as accountants and one had completed an advanced course in computer forensics.

These were in addition to the police involved in the parallel investigations within the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation that delved into the back-to-back €7.5bn loan between Anglo and Irish Life & Permanent, and the arrangement to have 10 investors draw down loans to buy shares in the terminally ill bank.

Around the rest of the ODCE, there were 45 people working, some of whom were part time, when the qualifications document was prepared.

Out of the total number of non-Garda workers, eight were clerical staff.

There were four qualified solicitors and two assistant principals with primary degrees in law.

Contract specifications prepared for solicitors and released under the Freedom of Information Act show that the ODCE demanded a lengthy degree of experience for any applicants.

Elsewhere in the office, there were also two accountants. And one person who had completed a course in forensic accounting.

The documents recorded 28 civil servants in the office who did not have a professional qualification.

There are seven people graded at principal officer and eight assistant principals.

In addition to the retired High Court judge hired as an adjudicator, the ODCE has brought in external consultants to help it assess the work involved in various investigations.

An invoice from PriceWaterhouseCooper shows that as part of its work, its staff spent a combined 180 hours sifting through documents on behalf of the ODCE. This was to identify what details would be required for a particular investigation.

However, this was not the Anglo Irish case as the bulk of the work was done prior to Oct 2008.

In late 2008, PWC billed for £50,000 (€64,000) for its work in relation to a second, unidentified investigation.

In total, the Department of Jobs, Enterprise, and Innovation has spent at least €240,000 on consultancy services for the ODCE since 2008. This has included a public opinion survey, the PWC assessment, and barristers’ advice.

Cyril O’Neill, Horwath Bastow Charleton, and Connolly Lowe have all provided advice on accountancy issues arising from investigations.

The combined efforts of the 16 dedicated staff, the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation and the external consultants has recently seen seven strands of Anglo investigations brought close to a conclusion.

This figure is down from the reported 10 inquiries originally established in 2009 but much of the paper work which it is hoped will appear in court has been handed over to the DPP.

As it stands, the investigation into the suspected failure of the bank to disclose its loans to directors is complete, and files for two potential prosecutions are with the DPP.

The sister inquiry into the hiding of these arrangements, with overnight loans on the eve of annual returns, is largely complete and files of evidence are due to be sent to the DPP.

But after three-and-a-half years and 100,000 documents, the moment of truth for the small squad of investigators is fast approaching.