Irish Examiner view: No culture of accountability for bosses in financial firms

Ulster Bank clients lost 43 properties, 29 of them family homes, because of overcharging in the industry-wide tracker mortgage scandal. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

This week we passed a milestone that does not reflect well on our systems, our civic morality, or our self-respect. 

Ten years ago this week the Moriarty tribunal, which investigated various payments to politicians, published its disturbing findings. 

Yet, across that decade the move-along-nothing-to-see-here response prevailed. No-one was charged, prosecuted, or much less convicted.

That culture of occasional or indifferent accountability manifested itself in another, equally disturbing way this week when the Adoption Authority admitted that it's not possible to know what happened up to 4,000 babies recognised only in incomplete adoption files. 

Rubbing salt into that deep wound, the authority says it would not be feasible to untangle this mystery as it would be too costly and time-consuming.

It may seem a shade too bolshie — if that adjective still has any real meaning — to complain about how this culture undermines itself by circumventing accountability just after the Central Bank imposed its largest ever fine on a bank.

Ulster Bank has been fined almost €37.8m over the "deliberate" tracker mortgage scandal. 

Ulster Bank clients lost 43 properties, 29 of them family homes, because of overcharging. 

Ulster Bank has paid €128m in refunds or compensation to 5,940 customers.

Unfortunately, that fine confirms an absence of accountability as the bank's customers, in one way or another, will pay the fine. 

The individuals who conspired and cheated will pay nothing. Why, you'd nearly think they were stockbrokers.