Ah, poor Tom, poor Tom Mulcahy. After 29 years of dedicated service, he is stabbed in the back by his former employer. The former chief executive of Allied Irish Banks recently claimed that he was squealed on to the Revenue Commissioners on alleged tax evasion charges. Tom, however, is determined to set the record straight.
He admitted to Revenue that he had an undisclosed non-resident account in England containing ‘several hundred thousandâ€? but there had been no transaction on it for years. This sounds like the “Father Ted’ defence; the money was just “resting’ in my account? Several hundred thousand? Sure, who could be expected to remember such a petty sum hidden away in an illegal account?
Anyway, Here’s how he described his settlement with Revenue “I am not saying that I was always compliant. I made a voluntary disclosure and paid what I thought was due, which is the right open to all citizens”
This is a very interesting statement, not just because it reveals that people like Tom are allowed to decide how much tax they will pay but also because he seems to genuinely think that it is a “right’ due to all citizens. He seems to be unaware that ordinary “peasants’ are not afforded this “right’.
Over the years, AIB has robbed many millions from the State and its own customers through various frauds. Tom defends his time as chief executive of this dodgy organisation between 1994 and 2001 by adopting the “I know nothing’ plea made famous by the Spanish waiter, Manuel’ in Fawlty Towers. ‘A chief executive’s role is to be positive and focus on driving the bank forward, rather than look for hidden problems.â€? He tells us.
Miraculously, Tom seemed to have developed a talent for finding hidden problems during his time as effective chairman of Aer Lingus. He’s very proud of the great job “he‘ did to turn the airline around, ‘I was in there seven days a weekâ€?, he tells us. Alas, once again, he was stabbed in the back, with all the praise going to that young whipper-snapper, Willie Walsh.
It seems poor old Tom just can’t win. He knew nothing about the dodgy dealings when he was the main man at AIB but still had to pay tax on his own dodgy account. He claims that he was the golden boy in turning Aer Lingus around but the credit went elsewhere – Ah, poor Tom, there’s just no justice in the world.