Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, wrote to all the banks and financial institutions on 9 July. The Minister made some comments in the letter about the possibility of a banking inquiry taking place. He said it was important to bear in mind that although the guarantee was provided in September 2008, records dating from the years preceding the granting of the guarantee and records dating from after the guarantee might both be of relevance to any inquiry.

In doing so, he asked all the banks to take all necessary steps to ensure that all records within the relevant institution, whether comprising documents, audio recordings or in other formats, were preserved to be available for an anticipated inquiry. This was a standard letter, which issued to all the banks and all of them, including Bank of Ireland, wrote back. There is a notable difference in the response from Bank of Ireland, which was written by Mr. Archie Kane on 10 July 2013, and the responses of the other banks. All the letters contain a general acknowledgement. The language used in the Bank of Ireland letter appears to imply that the bank has reservations regarding the Minister's request. I propose to tease out this matter. Mr. Kane confirmed that Bank of Ireland would take all such steps as it reasonably could to retain and maintain records believed to be within the remit of the anticipated inquiry. In Mr. Boucher's view, what are reasonable records and what would be reasonable behaviour in retaining such records?