Senator Shane Ross writes today about the various activities of former Financial Regulator, Liam O’Reilly.
O’Reilly is a director of Irish Life & Permanent and, at the same time, chairman of the Chartered Accountancy Regulatory Body (CARP) which is investigating the €8 billion deposits exchange between Irish Life and Permanent and Anglo Irish Bank last year.
Not to worry though, a spokesman for the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ireland, the body that oversees CARP, said that in their opinion there was no conflict of interest – Well, that’s all right then. If the ICAI is happy, we’re all happy.
Senator Ross also reminds us that O’Reilly was the Financial Regulator who failed to act against AIB overcharging in the years leading up to 2001. And as we witnessed last week AIB is still faithfully preserving that age old traditon of overcharging by Irish banks.
The Senator didn’t mention that O’Reilly is also a company director of Merrill Lynch which is under investigation for a potentially massive irregularity which may involve undisclosed losses of £284 million.
The Financial Regulator is ‘monitoring’ the situation but, as usual, is unable to make any comment because of strict secrecy laws.
And of course Merrill Lynch is also advising the Government on how to manage the financial crisis.
So, all in all, a great big happy family.
The merry-go-round goes ’round and ’round,
The children laughed and laughed.
So many were going ’round and ’round,
That the merry-go-round collapsed.