A claim by the Killarney branch manager of the Irish Permanent that £1.24 million had been lost through the reclassification of non-resident accounts was described by the bank's internal auditor as spurious and rubbish, the DIRT inquiry heard.
Mr David Kelly, the internal auditor for the banking section of Irish Life & Permanent, said that in 1992 he sent an extremely heated letter - in a manner he now regretted - to the southern regional manager of Irish Permanent, Mr Donal Garvey, after being told that up to 20 accounts had been lost following the reclassification.
"Occasionally managers would tell you that they were losing business to competitors but you would treat that with a grain of salt," he said.
He added that non-resident accounts were a stable deposit base, as was evidenced in 1992 when the interest rate on them was reduced in comparison to resident deposits. "A person who is in Australia was less likely to move their money than a person in Finglas," he said.
As part of the audit of non-resident accounts, carried out prior to 1993, he would focus on "risk indicators".
If an account had a high volume of withdrawals, the branch manager would be asked for an explanation.
"We were recording formally that the manager had given us certain assurances and that the implication was, of course, that if those assurances were not correct, he would be held accountable," he said.