Daly cannot recall asking if name would be taken off list

Former Anglo Irish Bank company secretary Bernard Daly told gardaí he couldn’t recall asking a subordinate if he would be willing to delete a bank account from a list being provided to Revenue.

Day 22 of the trial of three former Anglo officials heard that Mr Daly was head of banking supervision in the Central Bank before joining Anglo in 1993, rising to company secretary in 2003. He told gardaí he was appointed to deal with the Revenue audit because of his “public service background”.

Mr Daly also said he was not aware that an account belonging to the brother-in-law of former Anglo chairman Sean FitzPatrick was left off a list of non-residents accounts given to Revenue.

Mr Daly, aged 67, of Collins Avenue West, Whitehall, Dublin, former chief operations officer Tiarnan O’Mahoney, aged 56, of Glen Pines, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, and former assistant manager Aoife Maguire, aged 62, of Rothe Abbey, South Circular Road, Kilmainham, Dublin, have pleaded not guilty to seven counts at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. It is alleged they hid or omitted accounts, connected to Mr FitzPatrick from Anglo’s Core Banking System (CBS) or from documentation provided to Revenue between 2003 and 2004.

Detective Sergeant Daniel McGinty told Dominic McGinn, prosecuting, he interviewed Mr Daly in October 2013.

Mr O’Mahoney, Mr Daly said, was a bully, and he had “a colourful relationship” with him. “I had to sort him out once, and I did,” said Mr Daly, telling Mr O’Mahoney to “fuck off” during a row. Thereafter, he said he had a fine relationship with him.

He said the bank’s head of compliance Brian Gillespie was “terrified” of Mr O’Mahoney.

Mr Daly told gardaí that Revenue were carrying out an investigation into bogus non-resident accounts which were liable for Deposit Interest Retention Tax (DIRT). He said Revenue decided it was not worth investigating Anglo, but that people came forward under a tax amnesty saying they held bogus non-resident accounts with the bank. He said Revenue felt under pressure and decided to audit Anglo in 2003. He said Anglo was concerned, as it was a reputational issue.

Mr Daly said he recalled that Revenue weren’t interested in individual bogus accounts and that they were more interested in “getting a cheque” from the bank.

He said the Revenue accepted the eventual settlement of €2.9m with “no publicity”.

Mr Daly said Ms Maguire was not on the team dealing with Revenue. When gardaí showed him an email from Ms Maguire which appeared to contradict this, Mr Daly said he couldn’t recall her being on the team and he had no comment on the email.

He said Mr O’Mahoney never discussed leaving the name John Peter O’Toole out of a list of non-resident accounts being given to Revenue. He said he was aware that Mr O’Toole was Mr FitzPatrick’s brother-in-law.

Gardaí asked Mr Daly if he asked Mr Gillespie would he delete an account if requested to by Mr FitzPatrick. The accused said he had no memory of this and it would have stuck in his mind.

Gardaí put it to Mr Daly that the O’Toole account contained nearly Ir£140,000 in 1995 and therefore came under the remit of the audit. Investigators put it to him that it did not appear on the list handed over to Revenue.

“If something was missing, I wouldn’t have spotted it,” Mr Daly replied. “I have nothing to say. I can see it is missing and not there.”

Gardaí asked Mr Daly if it concerned him a false return was submitted to Revenue. He said it did and that “there is an obvious conspiracy in the background wider than O’Toole’s accounts”.

The trial continues before Judge Patrick McCartan and a jury of six men and six women.