Confronting our culture of omerta: The courage to denounce wrongdoing

Every now and then random events collide in a way that highlights the distance between promise and performance. The death of Tony Spollen and the resumption of the Disclosures Tribunal hearings seems such a coincidence.

Spollen was a central figure in the inquiry into the banks’ promotion of bogus non-resident accounts to help customers avoid Dirt tax almost three decades ago. As head of AIB’s internal audit in 1991, he warned the bank that it risked a €127m liability because of these venal arrangements.