Michael Buckley is a former chief executive of Allied Irish Banks, an organisation responsible for the theft of millions from both customers and the State.
He is now the senior independent director on DCCs board, a board that is fully supportive of its executive chairman, Jim Flavin, who was found by the Supreme Court to have engaged in insider trading.
Buckley says that that the board’s stance is
“grounded in justice, fairness, honesty and decency”.
Words like justice, fairness, honesty and decency coming out of Buckley’s mouth in respect of these events can only be described as a grotesque distortion of the English language.
Later, he further justifies the board’s stance by saying:
“Anyone concerned for the reputation of the Irish market as a result of the affair would reach the same conclusion.”
This is a less than subtle message to regulatory agencies that if they make a big fuss about this it could make Ireland look bad internationally.
A similar strategy was employed during the DIRT scandal. Politicians, government departments like Revenue, Dept. of Finance and other so called regulatory agencies were warned that if they did anything to stop the mass criminality involved there would be a flight of capital out of the country.
This strategy worked until the only real regulatory agency, the media, got wind of the scandal.
Judging from the almost complete lack of action against DCC and Jim Flavin, it looks like the so called Irish regulatory/law enforcement agencies have again folded under pressure from the likes of Buckley.