ODCE appears at committee: Watchdog’s role in trials in spotlight

Efforts by the State’s corporate law watchdog to cast blame beyond its office for the collapse of the criminal trial of former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Seán FitzPatrick has a taint of self-justification about it.

According to Ian Drennan, the head of the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, who appeared before an Oireachtas committee yesterday, factors which contributed to the collapse of Mr FitzPatrick’s trial “extend well beyond the failures that occurred within the ODCE”.