New trial date set for former Anglo official Tiarnan O’Mahoney

Bank’s ex-chief operations officer had 2015 conviction quashed

Tiarnan O’Mahoney was jailed for three years on July 31st last year. Photograph: Court Collins
Tiarnan O’Mahoney was jailed for three years on July 31st last year. Photograph: Court Collins

A trial date has been set for a former Anglo Irish Bank official after the Court of Appeal quashed his conviction for conspiring to conceal or alter bank accounts being sought by Revenue.

Former chief operations officer Tiarnan O’Mahoney had been jailed for three years by Judge Patrick McCartan in July 2015.

He was convicted by a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury that same month after he pleaded not guilty to seven charges.

The charges alleged that in 2003 and 2004 he conspired to hide or omit accounts, connected to Sean FitzPatrick from Anglo’s Core Banking System (CBS) or from documentation provided to Revenue, who were conducting an investigation into bogus non-resident accounts which may have been liable for Deposit Interest Retention Tax.

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On Tuesday, the Court of Appeal remanded Mr O'Mahoney (57) of Glen Pines, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, to appear before Judge Melanie Greally for a new trial date to be set.

His defence counsel Brendan Grehan SC indicated that his client was anxious for the case to get on as soon as possible. He said it is a matter associated with a number of other “Anglo” cases and as such should be run consecutively to other such trials rather than being conducted at the same time.

Mr Grehan suggested that, having considered this, a date could be set either this coming October or November or October 2017.

Dominic McGinn SC, prosecuting, indicated that one such trial was due to commence this coming May and “may spill over into the autumn sitting”. He said it was the State’s preference to have the case listed for October 2017.

Judge Greally noted that the case was expected to last six weeks. She said she would fix a date for this coming October and another date for this July to ascertain if the other trial would overlap.

She also set down a provisional date in October 2017 should Mr O’Mahoney’s trial not be ready to proceed later this year.

Mr O’Mahoney was remanded on continuing bail until July 22nd, next and a trial date of October 24th, 2016 was fixed. A provisional trial date of October 9th, 2017 was also set down.

Judge Greally said considering the fact that Mr O'Mahoney had appeared at all court dates there was no need for any signing on condition. She ordered that Mr O'Mahoney should notify the gardaí­ of any intention to travel outside of Ireland or the UK.