Chrysalis

So by now everyone has probably heard the ‘Tapes’. You have heard the two bankers (feel free to replace the b with a w) discussing the best strategy to get the Irish State to invest in their failing employer. Now, maybe a little controversially I am going to start by saying I don’t blame them for designing a strategy for survival they are after all capitalists running a business. Is it not their job to their best for their business?
If they had been talking about hoodwinking a possible suitor into paying an inflated price to buy them out it could be forgiven. What cannot be forgiven is that they, with such ease and lack of humanity discussed how they could screw us the ordinary citizen. As ‘Drummer’ would say they pulled it out of their arses. The plan to tease the central bank in by getting €7billion before revealing the true gravity of the situation was a clever one and like I said earlier one you could forgive (grudgingly) if it was a purely market based decision. This time however, they were playing with the lives of unwitting Irish citizens and possibly the State itself and therefore it is morally reprehensible.
Before I get back to the serious stuff I think it’s worth pointing out just how idiotic these two bankers were to have this discussion on the phone, not only that but on phones where the calls were being recorded. This in itself is evidence enough that they should never again be hired to a position of strategic importance in any business. But silly old me looking to my idealism again they no doubt will fall back on their network of fellow bankers and fall safely on their feet.
So on to the meat of this issue for me, the auditors and their part in all this. Ernst and Young were the ones who were supposed to be forensically looking at the Anglo books year on year in order to put their accounts together for submission to revenue. We now know that they missed completely the fact that Sean Fitzpatrick et al were using what have been called B&B loans where they shipped out debt to Irish Nationwide to get it off the books temporarily. Now missing the debt because it was off the books is one thing but how in the hell did they miss the fact this debt would suddenly re-appear again at the start of the next year?
Not being a staff member in Ernst & Young I can only speculate that it was missed by design. Since all this broke a number of years ago we have had calls for political heads to roll, we have had an election which saw the demise (for now) of Fianna Fail and the punishment of the Green’s for what the people saw as negligent steering of the ship of State. As usual we seem to have missed the point the real culprits in this are not just the bankers but their so called professional auditors. What is worse is that Ernst & Young and others like them have continued to receive government contracts since the collapse of the banking system.
Now these tapes have hit the public domain and we again have calls for heads to roll. I agree there should be a bloodletting but let’s ensure it is the right blood this time. An Oireachtas committee will I fear only serve a political outcome, letting our political classes have the lead on this will not get the truth or results we need. What we need is to tool up the Criminal Assets Bureau and the Gardaí to ensure they have the powers of investigation and arrest they need to do the job. Look at how they got Al Capone it wasn’t pretty but it was effective.
If we are really serious about this and if our political leaders want to deliver for us they should park their self-righteous rush to become judge and jury and leave it to the real professionals. They asked the people to give them more power in the recent Oireachtas Committees referendum and we said no. We have been saying no again on this we do not want a toothless Oireachtas committee that will deliver nothing more than headlines and sound bites. Instead we want action, arrests and charges where appropriate so arm the Gardaí with the powers they need and call a CAB for Anglo, Drummer and his arse!