Banking Inquiry: O’Donnell hands over ‘bloody keys’ as bank airbrushes past

These bank AGMs have turned out some right fun in recent years. It’s an opportunity for the little people to have a go at the shower of bankers who dragged the economy over the abyss, yet managed to save themselves.

Thu, 30 Apr, 2015 - 01:00

Mick Clifford

Yesterday, it wasn’t an average Joe or Josephine who lit in the Bank of Ireland AGM, but a former master of the universe, one who, under different circumstances, might have been up at top table as a member of “court” himself, Brian O’Donnell.

A simple twist of dates ensured that O’Donnell would have to vacate Gorse Hill at around the same time that the bank which had him turfed out gathered for its AGM. It was too much of an opportunity for the evicted former billionaire to let pass.

The O’Donnells had exhausted their legal avenues the previous day when the Supreme Court ruled that the game was up. Keys had to be handed over. The Bank of Ireland could take possession of the home that has become a media obsession.

The family pulled together the last of their possessions and took their leave of the premises mid morning. Jerry Beades, of the New Land League, whisked Mr O’Donnell from salubrious Killiney into UCD’s Belfield campus. The court was being held in the O’Reilly Hall, funded by and named after another Master Of The Universe who has fallen on hard times, Anthony O’Reilly.

While Jerry turned the wheels around and beat it back out to Gorse Hill, in preparation for the Alamo back at the ranch, O’Donnell strode into the court. Accompanied by his son, Blake, he took his place in the front row. There was the proverbial ring of steel around the gathering.

The gardaí were deployed outside the venue, and inside a troop of bank security men patrolled to keep bankers insulated from any attempts by the Land League to rain on a fine set of results.

The 14 members of the bank’s “court” sat on a raised stage, with the smattering of shareholders set back far enough to ensure that they were out of range for accurate lobbing of missiles or eggs.

Just before the meeting got underway, O’Donnell marched to the main stage and tossed a set of keys at the chief executive Richie Boucher, as if 30 pieces of silver were being offered up. When approached by a reporter as to the provenance of the keys, O’Donnell confirmed they were “the bloody keys”.

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch Jerry ‘Davy Crockett’ Beades had changed the locks on Gorse Hill. Ah ha, a final act of defiance. The bank could have their keys, but they wouldn’t work. As it was to turn out, Beades retreated from the final confrontation and made way for the sheriff.

Inside the AGM, the O’Donnells sat through the meeting, Brian occasionally shaking his head when chairman Archie Kane made references to how the bank dealt compassionately with those in financial trouble.

A note of reality was struck when shareholder Danielle Mangan relayed a tale from the real world.

She is a public servant on the average industrial wage who “had my pay cut to fund the banks”, and now found that the bank was telling her that her €250,000 mortgage was unsustainable. “Myself and my infant son face the prospect of losing our home,” she said.

The chairman said he couldn’t deal with customer issues. It was a salutary example of the kind of hardship that has been imposed on some as a result of the reckless lending that informed the economic collapse.

O’Donnell, by contrast, arrived at his current station through reckless borrowing, used to buy and sell property in a bubble they thought would never burst.

Apart from that, it was the usual fare at the meeting, contributions from the floor ranging from the grateful to the outraged. Kane dealt with all questions with a slick patter.

The thrust of the narrative from the top table is that the bank has managed to make a comeback after nearly going over the cliff.

Apart from a cursory nod to the taxpayers that had given the institution a leg-up, it was as if all the unpleasant stuff had never happened at all.

By the time the AGM ended a few hours later, a receiver had taken possession of Gorse Hill.

Despite being in court 82 times — and losing every one — the next stop for the O’Donnells is the European Court of Human Rights, which, one would think, has better things with which to occupy themselves.

The saga appears to have finally run out of road.