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48 December-January 2014
48 December-January 2014
Vipers’
nest
An outsider should
investigate Ansbacher,
its links to CRH and
the establishment
whitewash.
By Séamus Maye
J
UST whe n i t se e med t h a t th e A n sb a ch e r
scandal had receded into the dis-
tant past, up pops Gerard Ryan, a
respected civil servant with an explo-
sive dossier. Ryan’s revelations and
indeed frustrations, go to the very core
of what has passed for Irish politics and
institutional regulation for several dec-
ades now.
The suppression of the Ryan dossier
further exposes a reprehensible culture
of tolerance of white-collar crime and
the clubby and corrosive relationship
between big business and politics. This
rampant culture underpinned Ireland’s
socio-economic collapse and inspires the
current unprecedented level of dissatis-
faction with establishment parties.
Ansbacher facilitated the wealthiest in
ev adi ng t a x. In t he e arly ye ar s, t he C entr al
Bank rumbled Ansbacher and concluded
in a 2002 report that the accounts were
created to facilitate tax evasion, though
subsequently senior Central Bank lackeys
changed the wording in its report from
tax evasion to tax avoidance. Despite
the Central Bank holding talks with Des
Traynor in regard to the cessation of the
illegal scheme, it was allowed to operate
for another two bold decades.
In September 1999, the then Tánaiste,
Mary Harney, gave the following excuse
for not publishing the Ansbacher names.
“If the Government were to break the law
and publish the names, everybody on the
list would walk free and prosecutions
would not be brought”.
So, who were the great and
privileged?
For starters, Ansbacher was run from
the offices of Ireland’s largest company,
CRH Plc. The CRH Chairman Des Traynor
dominated Ansbacher in tandem with
acting as Charles J Haughey’s financial
advisor.
Eight of fifteen CRH Plc directors
held Ansbacher accounts. One direc-
tor, Jim Culliton, was chairman of the
RTÉ Authority and also a director of
Allied Irish Bank. Another CRH director,
Michael Dargan, was CEO of Aer Lingus.
Yet another director, Tony Barry, held
a longstanding directorship of Bank of
Ireland and was Deputy Governor from
1997-2000. The connection with CRH
has never really been expurgated.
The Ansbacher inspectors had this
to say about CRH’s involvement with
Ansbacher: “The Inspectors are struck
by the range of activities carried out on
CRH premises and making use of the CRH
facilities. Mr Traynor’s activities bore all
the hallmarks of banking and he carried
out these activities in CRH for almost
six years. The range and duration of the
activities is suggestive, but no more than
that, of the idea that CRH was actually
aware of Mr Traynor’s conduct”.
It proceeded: “The Inspectors are satis-
fied that CRH did in fact assist Ansbacher
in the carrying out of its business in the
manner described above. The question
arises however as to whether or not
CRH may be said to have done so know-
ingly or unknowingly. The Inspectors
have already concluded that there is evi-
dence tending to show that Ansbacher
was guilty of the criminal offence of car-
rying on unlicensed banking business
within the State contrary to the Central
Bank Act, 1971 and the Central Bank
Act, 1989.
POLITICS ANSBACHER
Illustration:
Dan Leydon
December-January 2014 49
If the Inspectors conclude that CRH
knowingly assisted Ansbacher in the
carrying out of its business in Ireland
then there would be evidence tend-
ing to show that CRH was also guilty
of the criminal offence of carrying on
an unlicensed banking business within
the State by virtue of having aided and
abetted Ansbacher to do so. One who
aids and abets, by virtue of Section 8 of
the Accessories and Abettors Act, 1861
and Section 7(1) of the Criminal Law
Act, 1997 is to be treated as a principal
offender.
The Inspectors will consider there-
fore the evidence suggestive of knowing
assistance and the evidence suggestive
of unwitting assistance”.
In the event, the inspectors found that
CRH did not knowingly assist Ansbacher.
On any objective perusal, this was an
astonishing finding, given all of the cir-
cumstances, the effect of which was to let
CRH off the hook in relation to criminal
charges, which would have had seri-
ous implications for its stock exchange
status and indeed for its directors and
shareholders.
CRH has also been the beneficiary of
an extraordinary catalogue of failures
to act, by a range of State institutions
including the ODCE, Moriarty Tribunal,
Garda Síochána, Competition Authority
and Revenue Commissioners. Over the
years this failure to act has turned into
outright protection.
In February 2000, Mary Harney gave
a n u nd er t a k in g t hat the a ut hor it ie s wou ld
carry out a comprehensive investigation
into anti-competitive practices at CRH,
but this has never happened. Patrick
Massey, then head of the Competition
Authority, resigned his position that
very same month stating: “it is no longer
possible for me to continue as director
of competition enforcement due to the
failure to provide adequate resources to
enable me to do the job properly. My expe-
rience has convinced me that price-fixing
cartels represent a serious widespread
problem in this country…the resources
available are wholly inadequate for car-
rying out the sort of complex and highly
intensive investigations that are required
to obtain evidence”. Massey went on to
say, “certain complaints made to me
in recent months involve matters that
would occupy four or five staff full-time
for the best part of a year. I simply do not
have such staff resources and given the
very real concerns expressed to me by the
complainants as to the consequences for
them if the matter is not pursued prop-
erly, I have concluded that it is simply not
possible to pursue the matter”.
Court challenges have proved gruel-
ling. The ‘Framus’ proceedings began in
1996 and there is still no end in sight.
Goode Concrete initiated proceedings
in 2010. That’s twenty-two years of
aggregated litigation with hardly a blow
landed.
Both sets of proceedings allege a web of
competition law breaches, most of which
run parallel to findings made by the EU
Commission and subsequently upheld
by the EU Court of First Instance and the
European Court of Justice.
The proceedings continue to founder
on a sea of relentless procedural delay
and legal costs. At present, both plaintiff
parties are locked in procedural combat
over allegations of objective bias on the
part of retired Judge John Cooke who it
is alleged in one case made a mislead-
ing disclosure and in the other case failed
to make any disclosure whatsoever con-
cerning a €135k shareholding in CRH.
Elsewhere, CRH was fined by the
European Commission for its lead role
in the European cement cartel in 1994. It
was more recently fined €530k in Poland
(2007) for obstructing a cartel investiga-
tion which eventually saw a €26m fine
imposed.
At the time, CRH stated that it viewed
the fine as a matter of serious concern
but had been advised that it had valid
grounds of appeal. The fine was subse-
quently upheld in its entirety. In May
of this year, CRH was informed that
it was to be fined €95m for its role in a
bathroom fixtures and fittings cartel in
Switzerland. It awaits a final decision.
To put some perspective on the enor-
mity of the Ansbacher fraud and the
implications of the now alleged white-
wash, in 1999 civil servant Paul Appleby
stated in his High Court affidavit:- “The
Ansbacher fraud would not have been
possible without the active collusion of
a wider group of bankers, solicitors and
accountants”. At the time, Fintan O’Toole
wrote in the Irish Times: “from the early
eighties onwards, a large swathe of
Ireland’s ruling elite silently withdrew
its allegiance from the State” and that
“organised crime in Ireland, which we
used to imagine as the preserve of shifty
working-class men with names like the
General, the Penguin and the Monk, is
also carried on by respectable, beau-
tifully tailored members of the upper
middle class”.
Fast forward fifteen years. There hasn’t
been one prosecution over the Ansbacher
affair. It appears from newspaper reports
that Mary Harney got cold feet and
attempted to close down the investiga-
tion. Micheál Martin hides behind the
fact that the files were given to “relevant
authorities”. Richard Bruton sat on the
dossier until Ryan’s patience snapped,
and the Minister only finally forwarded
it to Gardaí on 11 November, after the
Government blamed “a delay in the sys-
tem” for not sending it sooner.
It may be that there is evidence of crim-
inality in Ryan’s dossier. Section 19 of
the Criminal Justice Act 2011 states: “A
person shall be guilty of an offence if he
or she has information which he or she
knows or believes might be of material
assistance in b) securing the apprehen-
sion, prosecution or conviction of any
other person for a relevant offence and
fails without reasonable excuse to dis-
close that information as soon as it is
practicable to do so to a member of the
Garda Síochána”.
The cabal of independent “rele-
vant authorities” (Gardaí, Revenue
Commissioners, ODCE, Moriarty
Tribunal (and perhaps the Mahon
Tribunal) and the Competition Authority
give the appearance that Ireland has an
efficient and effective regulatory and
enforcement regime. However, when it
comes to white-collar wrongdoing, there
have been few meaningful investigations,
no charges and no custodial sentences.
In the case of Ansbacher, a number of
Ministers and indeed the legal profession
have done little to expedite the investi-
gation which would have died without
the zeal of Gerard Ryan. The problem is
a culture of deference and a police force
that depends for preference on political
decisions.
Much has been written about “sinis-
ter elements” hijacking protest agendas.
There has been little discussion about the
sinister elements that have ensured that
“relevant authorities” are neutralised
and democracy replaced with olligocratic
kleptophilia. Some, though by no means
all, of the protagonists in investigating
Ansbacher seem instead of focusing on
bringing criminality to book to have con-
structed a vipers’ nest of obfuscation and
obtuseness.
An investigation led by an out-
sider should be instigated not just into
Ansbacher but into the apparent white-
wash by the agencies of state, across the
range. •
Some, though
by no means
all, of the
protagonists in
investigating
Ansbacher
seem instead
of focusing
on bringing
criminality
to book to
have created
a vipers’ nest
of obfuscation
and
obtuseness
“
