IBRC liquidator should state current status of former directors’ loans of €155m – McGrath

Published on: 08 January 2015


Fianna Fáil Finance spokesperson Michael McGrath has called on the Minister for Finance to direct the Special Liquidators of IBRC to provide an update as to the current total amount of loans outstanding to former directors of Anglo Irish Bank.

The 2010 annual report for the bank indicated that at the end of 2009, there were €155m in loans outstanding to former directors of Anglo Irish Bank against which the bank had taken a provision of €109m.  These loans were “ in respect of nine former Executive and non-executive Directors who either resigned from the Board or the Bank in the fifteen month period ended 31 December 2009.” There was a further €11m in loans to other staff described as “ key management ”.

Deputy McGrath commented, “I posed a question to the Minister for Finance prior to Christmas to ascertain the current position in relation to the former directors’ loans. These are very considerable sums of money which were owed to a nationalised bank and it is imperative that the State recoups as much of the amounts outstanding as possible. The Minister stated that the special liquidators declined to provide the information citing commercial sensitivity. It is my view that the public interest necessitates that this information be provided in as much detail as possible. Specifically, the public will want to know how much of these loans have been recovered and what amounts if any have been written off in the intervening period.

“The Companies Act 1990 requires firms to disclose information regarding directors’ loans. In respect of a bank, disclosure requirements are quite different from rules which apply to other loans due to the specific duties which a director has in respect of running the bank. IBRC has not published audited or unaudited accounts since the release of its interim statement for the period ended June 30th 2012. No accounts have been released for the end of 2012 or any time since the liquidation process commenced in February 2013.

“This leaves the public in the dark on the question of what has happened to the loans of former directors and the level of recovery that has been achieved. This is an unsatisfactory situation which should be resolved by the Minister for Finance directing the Special Liquidator to publish the relevant information, if necessary, as the Minister is entitled to do under the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation Act 2013”.

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