Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 20 December 2012

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform

Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion

10:45 am

Photo of Pearse DohertyPearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that there are rules and procedures in place and that Mr. Considine is satisfied with them.

To get to the crux of the issue, in this case which was the largest real estate portfolio acquisition completed in Europe in 2011, the head of the non-core division of Bank of Ireland, Mr. Ben Hoey, which was responsible for selling it to Kennedy Wilson is now the managing director of that same loan portfolio. He is now the managing director of Kennedy Wilson in Europe. Kennedy Wilson is one of the investors within Bank of Ireland. It is part of the consortium with Fairfax and Wilbur Ross. As public interest directors, do alarm bells not start ringing? These people know Bank of Ireland has to deleverage and sell its assets and is involved in a fire sale and in my view these people are asset stripping the company and, therefore, are asset stripping the taxpayer.

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