Anglo Irish: Fianna Fail’s bankers

The nationalisation of Anglo Irish Bank represents another handout to FF’s banker and developer friends. It is a classic example of nationalising their losses and bad debts.

Sean Quinn, Ireland’s richest man, was Anglo Irish Bank’s biggest debtor. He also owned 15% of the bank and coincidently he happens to be a major donor to FF.

Sean Fitzpatrick, the disgraced chairman of the bank who hid €129 million in personal loans from the bank, was also a major fundraiser for FF.

Another developer Sean Dunne – the man who borrowed heavily to build ‘Trump Towers’ in Ballsbridge, has millions in loans from Anglo. He too is a big FF financier.

Did any of this influence Cowen and Lenihan’s decision to bail out Anglo Irish Bank?

UCD Professor of Economics, Morgan Kelly, thought so. Using well connected sources, he claimed in a recent Irish Times article that Cowen and Lenehin overruled state officials to press through the rescue plan. He argued that the only effect of the state guarantee is that the Irish taxpayer will make up the losses of Anglo Irish’s bondholders instead of the insurers who had already been paid to underwrite the risk.

"In the view of international investors, piling Anglo Irish’s gambling losses on top of a spiralling national debt could easily suffice to sink the Irish State into bankruptcy," Kelly said.

According to Kelly, Anglo’s bad debts could easily exceed €20,000 per household.

The Anglo Irish Bank scandal exposes that the golden circle is alive and well in Ireland.

While Sean Fitzpatrick, the bank’s chairman, was dipping his hands into the banks money, he was also a managing partner in auditors Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) and a director in Greencore.

Ned Sullivan, another director at Greencore was also a director in Anglo Irish.

Gary McGann, a director in Anglo Irish was also the boss at Smurfit-Kappa, where Sean Fitzpatrick was also a director.

Seán FitzPatrick was also on the board of Aer Lingus.

Anglo Irish’s main investor was Seán Quinn and his main advisor is Dermot Reilly, a partner in - PWC.

Anne Heraty who is running the largest Irish recruitment agency CPL was also a director in Anglo Irish Bank.

Anglo Irish’s new boss Donal O’Connor succeeded Anglo's recently resigned director Lar Bradshaw as chairman of the controversial Dublin Docklands Development Authority — just as Sean Fitzpatrick was departing the same DDDA as a director.

Donal O'Connor is also a former managing partner of guess who - PricewaterhouseCoopers!

This is the clique of the super rich want us to pay for their crisis.

Anglo is the Republic’s third largest lender. An estimated 80% of its loan book relates to property and construction markets.

Strangely the amount of money on deposit in the bank shrank from €80 Billion to €51Billion (and possibly even lower) before the state moved in to guarantee the bank’s debts of €100 Billion.

The question many are now asking is: Were the super rich given a chance to get their money out in case it would be used to cover bad debts?

There are now plans to turn Anglo Irish Bank into a ‘Toxic Bank’. Essentially the state run bank would take on all the bad debts of the other banks. This is the ideal solution for the bankers and the rich. They get to dump their bad loans onto the taxpayer and walk away.

The government is also proposing to continue the failed policy of ‘re-capitalising’ AIB and Bank of Ireland to the tune of €2 Billion each. Which means: More Bail Out for the Rich.

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