I think it is the real scandal in the country, not just Anglo!
This type of thing is so common in Ireland its scary, to use boxing parlance we would need a knock-out to get a draw from these wastrels. 
What type of thing? The great benefit of Yate’s article is that he talks specifics, not generalities. I could be naive, but I don’t believe breaches of banking regulations and laws of the type that went on at Anglo are typical are commonplace, I truly don’t.
In fact I would say that the type of fluffy thinking that ends in ‘all the bankers/politicians/entrepreneurs/are at it, sure jayz aren’t they all a corrupt shower, the whole bloody lot of them, sure what would ya expect, this is Ireland’ is part of the problem.
We need to extract the wrongdoers with surgical precision.
In a normal country the good ones make sure that the bad ones cop it. The sight of the bad ones occasionally copping it is what promotes confidence in, and loyalty to ‘the system’ by those lower down on the pecking order. Case in point, Bernie Madoff is already serving 150 years behind bars.
And that is exactly what does not happen, and has never happened in Ireland. Case in point, Sean Fitzpatrick has recently been given even more money by Anglo Irish Bank.
If Bernie was operating out of Ireland, they would still be trying to figure out if he’d done anything wrong. They’d be telling us about how “complicated” it all was. The gardai might have gone in for an aul rummage around his office at this stage. Maybe confiscated a few printers due to possible breaches of low toner regulations. It’s depressing.
Another of the excessively paid best practise merchants exposed …
It explains why its only some economists complaining about NAMA… those preaching ethics and corporate governance have been compromised…
Maybe she is doing some deep undercover research on corporate fraud… 
When I went to UCD, Niamh Brennan was just an accountancy lecturer (and a good one, to be fair), I wonder when she was appointed ‘one of the country’s leading experts in corporate governance’.
Ivan would ye ever fuck off back to the bookies…
The real scandal at Anglo is Anglo.
I remembered the name from several interviews on places like Morning Ireland a good while back around the time Enron blew up… there was a period when she was wheeled out to drone on about gender balance in the boardroom, corporate ethics, best practice in board appointments, the importance of having an independent board, conflicts of interest… She had that patronising, superior, lecturing, monotonous tone common to all regulators, though she was always referred to as from UCD
She went quiet, so maybe she has some shame…
No, no, no, the real scandal is the derivatives. No wait, it’s the personal loans dressed up as property loans to fund developer lifestyles. No, actually, it’s the loans for speculative investments (equity stakes in properties that Anglo for funding to build - Anglo was providing 100% financing, by loaning equity investors their stake…).
edit: forgot to add - shifting their year end so they don’t have to report at all this year… so we don’t get to see how bust they are until after NAMA…
That’s what I call damning with faint praise.
Yes, but did the DDDA have a ‘corporate responsibility’ section in their annual report? And one on how trees are their most valuable assets? (Or should that be people?). And what about all their work for charity…
edit: to be fair, though, I expect the appointment has muzzled her, as it has muzzled other critics. I doubt Alan Ahearne agrees with all that is done or said. The book in ten years time may be interesting, though…
She’s married to Michael McDowell. Does that make her establishment?
exactly, have to admit fair play to Seanie Fitz… a Haughey like stroke… well worth the few grand (of someone else’s money) to pay off the preachers, and fill a page in the report… wonder were they carbon neutral…
married to McDowell… yes it all makes sense… thinking ahead on getting rid of the objectors to development
What we know is that 3 of the main auditing firms Ernst & Young, KPMG and PWC have presided over the worst banking collapse in the world with exception of Iceland. This was done by ignoring the obvious, taking the euro and blustering about the high standards of corporate goverance and ethics in Ireland. We have yet to have disclosed to us if any of those involved in this sorry mess have been forced to resign.
What the auditing world has failed to grasp is that the process is entirely broken and needs to fixed. This needs to be focussed around the fact that if you leave any auditor in a room with someone with enough money you could get any report including one which says the dublin glass bottle site is currently worth €500m, just look at the carroll case where two sets of accountants were prepared to say we were going to have the greatest recovery ever for a bucket full of shekels.
What they have managed to grasp is as much as possible without letting little things like ethics or responsibility get in the way, in the best tiger spirit. But then, they are accountants after all.
I think you have failed to grasp the purpose of “auditing”.