Shane Ross
Dáil Eireann
Dear Deputy Ross
On Tuesday, Enda Kenny had the Dáil in stitches reminding you of what you had said about the Irish Nationwide on 28 March 2004:
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You said Michael Fingleton’s Irish Nationwide published a cracking set of figures. And you went on to say
All Fingleton’s figures are spectacular. Pre- tax profits are up 20% and gross lending rose by 72%.
And you followed that by saying I should have bought into Irish Nationwide.
Anyone who has a spare twenty grand might still have time to carpetbag.
You handled it well. You laughed it off. You laughed it off again the next morning when Cathal Mac Coille asked you about it on Morning Ireland.
But this was not a once-off error of judgment. You portrayed yourself as the scourge of the banks and the bankers. But until March 2009, when Mark Little asked you straight out “Should Fingleton resign?” you had never criticised Michael Fingleton or the Irish Nationwide. Instead, you lauded his performance and attacked anyone who dared criticise him.
Why did you never run a story about Irish Nationwide’s overcharging?
You ran stories about every other lender in this country, but you ignored the predatory lending practices of the Irish Nationwide.
Their practice of charging 20% penalty interest on arrears
Their sub-prime lending rates
Their practice of not passing on rate cuts
The Ombudsman’s finding that their early repayment penalties were “unlawful”.
And when I brought borrowers along to the AGMs to raise their treatment in public, you wrote
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Their determination to hasten the sale of the society forced them to parade trophy victims at the AGM. Every hard luck story was told. Members who had not repaid their loans were wheeled out as victims, not defaulters. They lambasted Fingleton for behaving like a businessman, not a benefactor.
Why did you spring to the defence of Michael Fingleton and the Irish Nationwide whenever they were criticised?
When a group of members put down a motion of no confidence in Michael Fingleton at the Irish Nationwide AGM in 2003, You celebrated Fingleton’s defeat of the motion in the Sunday Independent, and described those who expressed a lack of confidence as “malcontents” and you attributed ulterior motives to them.
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The meeting ended in triumph for the man branded an autocrat. The extent of the boss’s victory – five to one on a motion of confidence – was stunning, considering all the bad publicity and tales of woe peddled about him.
Yet the outcome was puzzling. How could a group of malcontents emerge so badly scarred from a members’ meeting?
The trouble with the rebels was that they were profiteers posing as philanthropists. The rebels want the loot.
In October 2008, when The Financial Regulator sanctioned Michael Fingleton’s son for using the state guarantee to attract deposits, you jumped to the defence of the Irish Nationwide and attacked the Financial Regulator. You described the Irish Nationwide as a “soft target” for the Financial Regulator:
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And last Tuesday, the unfazed Regulator reverted to type. He took another high profile swipe at a soft target. He fined Irish Nationwide €50,000.
The boss’s son had told his clients to deposit money with him as the Nationwide was guaranteed by the Government. Paddy had found another scapegoat: the son of the boss had done something foolish. Clobber him.
Why did you never criticise the corporate governance of the Irish Nationwide?
You were relentless in your attack on corporate governance at the EBS. Here is the video from your own website where you are grilling Alan Dukes about the corporate governance of Anglo.
But you never once criticised Fingleton’s dominance of the Irish Nationwide, a dominance which has cost the taxpayers €5.5billion to date. You never once criticised the fact that such a large institution had only 5 directors, and only three of them were non-executive. When the Financial Director of their largest lending client was appointed to the board, why did you not criticise that?
In January 2009, you called on the shareholders in Anglo, Irish Life & Permanent, Bank of Ireland and AIB to go to the AGMs and demand the removal of the boards. But again, no criticism of the Irish Nationwide board.
Why do you claim that you identified banks to be in danger long before most senators?
This is what you say on your website:
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I identified bankers as rogues, and banks as in danger long before most Senators…
I suppose that is technically true in that you did this before most Senators, but as late as late as July 28 2008, you suggested:
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EBS members must be green with envy as they see their rival, Michael Fingleton’s Irish Nationwide, poised to pay out five-figure sums to each member.
As late as September 2008, when Reuters claimed that Irish Nationwide was in talks about its future solvency, you went on national radio to say that the Irish Nationwide was the most profitable and best capitalized of all the banks.
On 15 September 2008, you described the Reuters story as “nonsense”?
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There has been idle chatter for months about one or two Irish banks going belly-up. Last week Reuters news agency jumped the gun. As Irish journalists competed to break the story of a bank biting the dust, Reuters went walkabout. It published a fable about the Irish Nationwide Building Society, suggesting that it was in talks with its bankers about closing down the shutters.
Reuters, once the blue blood of journalism, must have known the consequences of its story. If it was true there would be a run on the Nationwide. Happily for small savers, it was nonsense.
As Enda Kenny has pointed out, you praised the fact that the Irish Nationwide had increased their gross lending by 72%, but you apparently saw no danger in that.
When you did eventually criticise Fingleton, it had to be dragged out of you.
On 24 March 2009, on Prime Time, Mark Little managed to drag the first ever criticism of Fingleton from you, but he had to work hard to do it: You sat quietly and said nothing about the Irish Nationwide. You launched into a tirade of abuse about the EBS and the Bank of Ireland and their upcoming AGMs. You tried hard to muddy the waters and avoid the Irish Nationwide. You allowed Joan Burton speak about the Irish Nationwide.
Mark Little turned to you and said:
"Shane. Dan Boyle said today Michael Fingleton has come to personify all that is wrong with Irish Banking"
You said: "What we are seeing here...what we are confusing all the time...misdemeanours and behaving unethically ...and on the other side ...a raft of bankers who are being paid too much who should all go"
Little had to ask you straight out "Should Fingleton resign?" You said " Yes, of course. They should all resign"
But your colleagues on the Sunday Independent continued to give Fingleton’s side of the story
The following Sunday, 29 March 2009, Your colleague in the Sunday Independent Brendan O’Connor defended Fingleton:
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Except the funny thing, that you mightn't have got from reading the papers, is that Fingleton isn't a crook. In fact, he isn't even a bad businessman. What you mightn't have known from the mob is that Fingleton was widely regarded in these islands as one of the best businessmen around. The unique business model of the building society that he built was legendary. Costs were pared back to nothing long before it was fashionable, and profits were enormous. And other people weren't able to duplicate it.….
As for running the Irish Nationwide like his own personal fiefdom, that seems to be another way of saying that Fingleton took a lot of personal responsibility for the decisions made there.
And in April 2010, another Sunday Independent colleague Liam Collins “exclusively” reported that Fingleton was going to give the €1m to charity
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In a dramatic development last night, a close associate of Mr Fingleton, speaking with authority, declared: "Mr Fingleton has never said he would keep the money for his own personal use. This was an option he never once considered. His intention always was to quietly distribute these funds to a number of Irish charities. It is still his preference that this should happen.
As of May 2011, The Irish Nationwide has cost the Irish taxpayers €5.5billion and Michael Fingleton has not returned the €1m !
Yours sincerely
Brendan Burgess
