Hester Bais

👇👇👇 A Culture of Secrecy - of course. More worrying is the culture of disinformation: 🔹 RTÉ A VERY SAFE PAIR OF HANDS FOR IRELAND’S BANKING & REGULATORY ESTABLISHMENT? 🔹Who chairs Ireland’s national broadcaster? 🔹Terence O’Rourke, former Managing Partner of KPMG Ireland (2006–2013), former Head of Audit and President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (2004–2005). 🔹And which financial institutions did KPMG audit during the years surrounding Ireland’s catastrophic banking collapse? Allied Irish Banks (AIB) Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS) Permanent TSB Educational Building Society (EBS) — from 2009 Bank of Scotland (Ireland) DEPFA Bank HSBC’s Irish operations Postbank in Ireland 🔹These are not speculative connections. 🔹O’Rourke himself identified these institutions when giving evidence before the 2015 Irish Banking Inquiry. 🔹KPMG’s audit clients included institutions whose subsequent losses contributed to an extraordinary burden on Irish taxpayers. 🔹The Banking Inquiry concluded that the prevailing accounting and auditing framework helped mask critical banking risks, allowing apparently healthy financial statements to emerge shortly before institutions required recapitalisation. 🔹O’Rourke also served on the board of the Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board, the profession’s then regulatory body, from 2007 to 2014. 🔹And where did he subsequently land? Chair of RTÉ. 🔹Meanwhile, RTÉ recruited Annemarie Britz, formerly a senior director at the Central Bank of Ireland, as Chief Financial Officer. 🔹Britz was the decision-maker in a Central Bank prohibition case subsequently set aside by the High Court for serious procedural unfairness. 🔹Among the Central Bank’s legal representatives in those proceedings was Shelley Horan SC - who had (much to my shock & dismay) represented me - instructed by McCann Fitzgerald - without disclosing this conflict of interest. 🔹So Ireland’s national broadcaster is chaired by a former leader of a major banking auditor, while its finance leadership has recruited directly from the banking regulator. 🔹The professional credentials are undeniable. So are the institutional connections. 🔹But where is the sustained investigative journalism into the true liquidity and solvency positions of Ireland’s banks, the role of their auditors, regulatory failures and the treatment of those who exposed wrongdoing? 🔹Of course none of these appointments proves editorial interference. 🔹But I can say that @rtenews faithfully reported false media statements in 2015 that emanated from @OireachtasNews 🔹My concern is that there is a concentration of banking, auditing and regulatory experience at the top of a publicly funded broadcaster and this surely warrants scrutiny of conflicts of interest and editorial independence. ‼️A safe pair of hands, certainly. The question is: safe for whom?‼️

PART 2/2 WHEN QUALIFIED EXPERTISE THREATENS…… 🔹I am the daughter of a taxi driver & worked for every qualification I earned and every professional position I achieved. Nothing was handed to me through a legal or other “connection”. 🔹I qualified as a solicitor in Ireland & also practised New York & English law. I spent more than twenty years practising international banking, derivatives and capital markets law, including working within major international banks. 🔹I was subsequently recruited as an Expert Adviser to the Irish Banking Inquiry, with responsibilities that included examining the conduct of the Central Bank of Ireland leading up to and beyond the banking crisis. 🔹And what happened when I sought to exercise that expertise? 🔹The Central Bank’s own General Counsel warned me that I should agree all my questions in advance. Read that again. 🔹I found this interjection intimidating & later it was described by Senan Allen in his “Review” as inappropriate, highly irregular & “he oughtn’t to have done it”. 🔹The Allen Report characterised my assessment that @centralbank_ie sought special treatment as “simply preposterous”. 🔹An independent expert is appointed to a parliamentary inquiry examining the circumstances of Ireland’s banking collapse & was being told by the regulator’s General Counsel to pre-agree her questions. [Note I was excluded within the Inquiry from investigating banks due to previous senior in-house roles as Head of Legal of Bank of Ireland Global Markets & Lead Counsel of GE Financial Markets]. 🔹Since when does an institution under scrutiny in an Inquiry get to influence the questions asked by those investigating it & more importantly why did @centralbank_ie require that scrutiny? 🔹I regarded this as a deeply troubling indication of the influence of vested institutional interests over an inquiry supposedly established to uncover the truth. 🔹I subsequently made protected disclosures - supported by colleagues - concerning serious deficiencies in the Inquiry, including inappropriate conflicts of interest, the withholding of crucial documentation & immense pressure to proceed without experts having reviewed essential evidence. 🔹Three of my disclosures were substantiated by late 2015. It is now openly stated & recognised that bankers hoodwinked the Inquiry. 🔹Yet my independent expertise, painstakingly acquired over decades, did not protect me from the devastating professional and personal consequences that followed. 🔹My qualifications were apparently sufficient for the State to recruit me. But my expertise was considerably less welcome when I challenged powerful institutions. 🔹And therein lies the extraordinary irony of Patrick Geoghegan’s lecture about elitism. 🔹A woman with zero legal or professional connections spends decades acquiring qualifications & specialist expertise, only to encounter resistance when along with several colleagues - she exercises a level of independent scrutiny of Ireland’s banking regulator. 🔹Meanwhile, politicians such as Harris & Varadkar - whose records raise serious questions about competence governance and accountability are defended by people who have themselves enjoyed privileged access to political power. 🔹I have no objection to politicians or others without university degrees, however, I object to double standards. 🔹The real elitism is a system in which political, legal & other connections appear to count for more than independent expertise, professional integrity and accountability. 🔹Perhaps Professor Geoghegan might turn his attention to that. @Wftproof @WinkSabee @TransparencyTF @kenoflynnTD @JMcGuinnessTD @johnmcdonnellMP @premnsikka @ArturNadol7566 @stevemiddi1 @BankConfidenti1 @LSRAIreland @NiamhParker4 @SamanthaLaDuc