Resignation not linked to commercial issues - INBS

IRISH NATIONWIDE:IRISH NATIONWIDE has said that there were "no commercial issues" behind the decision of Dr Michael Walsh to resign as chairman after almost 14 years as a director of the building society.

The building society said in a statement released yesterday at lunchtime, following Dr Walsh’s sudden resignation the previous evening, that the board of Irish Nationwide “understands and fully accepts that he can no longer devote the increasing amount of time required to provide the necessary oversight and leadership in the current challenging times for all financial institutions”.

Irish Nationwide said that vice-chairman Terry Cooney would take over as acting chairman “until such time as a successor is appointed”. Mr Cooney, an accountant, has been a director of the building society since 2001.

It’s understood that Dr Walsh telephoned the building society on Tuesday to say that he would be resigning and later sent in a resignation note to the society. He also contacted the Financial Regulator to say he would be stepping down.

A spokeswoman for the regulator said: “We expect Irish Nationwide to appoint a new chairman with immediate effect.”

Green Party chairman Dan Boyle told RTÉ that people had questions about Irish Nationwide’s relationship with Anglo Irish.

The building society helped former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Seán FitzPatrick conceal loans of up to €122 million from shareholders, the media and the public.

Mr FitzPatrick hid the loans by using borrowings from Irish Nationwide over an eight-year period to move his loans temporarily off Anglo Irish’s books just before its accounting year-end.

“We learned first of Irish Nationwide being the institution that facilitated the movement of director loans from Anglo Irish that didn’t show up subsequently on the accounts of Anglo,” Mr Boyle said.

“There must have been awareness within Irish Nationwide itself at some level, certainly on the day-to-day running executive level, that these practices were happening. Now that the chair has chosen to resign I think I’d ask questions of others who are working with him.”

Irish Nationwide is the fourth guaranteed Irish-owned lender at which a chairman or chief executive has stepped down since Mr FitzPatrick’s resignation in mid-December over the controversy surrounding his hidden loans.

Dr Walsh was appointed a director of the building society in April 1995 and chairman in May 2001. His annual remuneration amounted to €100,430 in 2007.

An executive director of International Investment Underwriting (IIU), the private equity firm owned by businessman Dermot Desmond, Dr Walsh is a former professor of banking and finance at University College Dublin.

The other members of the Irish Nationwide board are company secretary Stan Purcell; David Brophy, chief executive of Seán Mulryan’s property company Ballymore; and former assistant Dublin city manager Seán Carey.

Rory O’Ferrall, a former senior accountant at Deloitte, and Adrian Kearns, who is stepping down as chief executive of the National Development Finance Agency, were appointed directors by the Government under the bank guarantee to represent the taxpayer.