'Don't get caught' abusing bank guarantee, former Anglo CEO warned staff
Anglo staff laughed and joked about abusing the bank guarantee in the days after its introduction, according to further transcripts of conversations between Anglo Irish Bank executives.
In the extracts obtained by the Irish Independent and recorded shortly after the bank guarantee scheme was introduced in 2008, former CEO David Drumm is heard warning executives not to get caught abusing the guarantee scheme.
In another extract, two senior executives describe a possible nationalisation of the bank as "fantastic" so they can keep their jobs and become civil servants.
Mr Drumm is heard giggling as he discusses with fellow executive John Bowe, then Director of Capital Markets with Anglo, the possible German reaction to the bank guarantee.
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It has emerged that Mr Bowe and fellow top Anglo executive Peter Fitzgerald earned €1.2m each after they were recorded discussing a plan to underestimate the cost of bailing out the toxic bank.
In taped conversations released yesterday, Mr Bowe is heard admitting that the initial bailout figure of €7bn was "pulled out of his arse" to hide the enormity of the situation from the Government.
The bailout eventually cost the taxpayer €30bn.
Both men had €300,000 salaries with Anglo, and were promoted and continued to work with the zombie bank after it was nationalised.
Meanwhile the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has said he is "personally sickened" by the contents of the Anglo tapes.
Speaking this morning, Minister Brendan Howlin said he is confident there will be a banking inquiry early in the next Dáil term, and that the Government should spend the summer getting all the details ready.
He said the people involved have to be held to account.
"I'm personally sickened by them (the tapes)," Minister Howlin said.
"I think they underscore an attitude that is unbelievable.
"There is no sense of the incredible damage done to this country.
"People at the heart of these decisions knew the scale of what was going to be burned up in this debacle, (and) they must have had some understanding of the impact that would have on the Irish economy and the Irish people."
