Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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232. To ask the Minister for Finance if a person (details supplied) worked as an employee of a bank or was retained by it as a solicitor; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41366/16]

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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237. To ask the Minister for Finance if his attention has been drawn to the fact that a person (details supplied) has access to direct accounts of a bank; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41503/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 232 and 237 together.

In response to the Deputy's question, the bank identified has informed me of the following:

The solicitor identified by the Deputy has never been an employee of the bank nor any of its subsidiaries. The law firm of which the solicitor represented is a member of the Bank's panel of law firms and provides legal services to the Bank on a range of matters. Historically, the Managing Partner of the firm, was retained as the Bank's primary external lawyer in Cork. This arrangement ceased in 2013.

Neither the solicitor identified, nor any member of the firm, have had access to the bank's systems, including access to accounts of customers. Any information in the possession of either the solicitor or the firm relating to customers of the bank would only have been given by authorised officials of the bank to them/it in the ordinary course of instructing the firm.