O'Reilly headed accounts body probing his bank
FORMER financial regulator Liam O'Reilly doubled up as a director of Irish Life & Permanent and as chairman of the accountancy body investigating the controversial €8bn deposits exchange between Irish Life and Anglo Irish Bank last year. Three Irish Life directors -- Denis Casey, Peter Fitzpatrick and David Gantly -- resigned following the discovery of the interbank transactions.
Mr O'Reilly, predecessor to Paddy Neary as chief at the financial regulator, was chairman of the Chartered Accountants Regulatory Body (CARB) in March this year when its Complaints Committee decided to investigate the transaction between Irish Life and Anglo Irish Banks.
Asked last week whether the investigation by the accountancy body which he chaired, into Irish Life of which he is a director, provided a conflict of interest to Mr O'Reilly, a spokesman said that neither CARB nor its parent -- the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ireland -- "believed that Mr O'Reilly was conflicted in his role as chairman of CARB'.'
The spokesman added that the Complaints Committee acted independently of the board as the board played no part in the independent decisions. Asked if Mr O'Reilly's board appointed the Complaints Committee, the spokesman admitted that it did, but added that it had in turn appointed John Purcell, former Comptroller and Auditor General, to conduct the probe.
Mr O'Reilly stepped down as chairman of the accountancy body in June, three months after the inquiry had been in action.
The spokesman insisted his departure had nothing to do with the inquiry into the €8bn transaction but that he had served out a three-year term already agreed with the Chartered Accountants of Ireland.
It is not the first time that Mr O'Reilly has been involved in controversy since his departure as financial regulator.
Earlier this year, former AIB internal auditor Eugene McErlean suggested that Mr O'Reilly, as regulator, had failed to act against overcharging at AIB in the years leading up to 2001.
- SHANE ROSS
