I simply refuse to believe the claim by the State that 24 million documents have to be examined before the Anglo Irish Bank trial can proceed.
If the figure was 24,000 documents I would be surprised but 24 million is just not believeable.
The principal allegation against Mr. Fitzpatrick seems to be that he was in breach of Company law when he allowed the bank to provide financial assistance to Sean Quinn and loans to ten customers, known as the ‘Maple 10’, to buy Anglo shares to prevent a collapse in the share price.
This is not, despite what we’re told, a complex charge and neither are any of the other charges.
There is nothing unique about the alleged crimes, that’s why they are listed in the Company Law Act. They are well known and, with the exception of Ireland, regularly come before the courts in functional jurisdictions.
If I was told that 24 million documents were processed during the Nuremberg Trials I would be surprised.
If I was told that the entire block of white collar crimes cases in America over a ten year period came to 24 million documents I would be surprised.
When I’m told that the trial of three bankers in a two bit, backward banana republic has to be delayed so that 24 million documents can be processed I think – Lie.
If a northside Dubliner stole a loaf of bread or conned the social welfare wonder how much documentation would be required before there was a decision to prosecute him or her
They are probably referring to data rather than documents (often interchanged). So it could be 24m rows in a database. Or not. They don’t really say.
In context, if a team of 20 lawyers were capable of speed reading every document in 2 minutes (on average) and were well paid to work 12 hours a day for 300 days a year, it would take them 11.1 years to get the job done.
Assuming every document is 3 pages long on average, the guts of 9,000 trees would need to be felled to print off one copy of each.
At a rate of 2 sheets a second, it would take a single printer 14 fault-free months to get the job done.
Stack those pages up, then, and they create nearly 8 columns the size of Mount Everest.
We’re gonna need a bigger court…