THREE former employees of Anglo Irish Bank have been jailed for conspiring to hide accounts connected to the bank’s former chairman Sean Fitzpatrick from Revenue Commissioners.
Judge Pat McCartan said it was a very difficult case to deal with as he sentenced the three - the first bankers to be jailed since the country's financial crash.
Tiarnan O’Mahoney, 56, of Glen Pines, Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow, was handed down a three year sentence.
O’Mahoney, Anglo’s former chief operating officer, was found guilty of knowingly furnishing false information to Revenue, conspiring to have accounts deleted from the bank’s core banking system and conspiring to defraud Revenue.
Bernard Daly, 67, of Collins Avenue West, Whitehall, Dublin — and the bank’s company secretary — was found guilty of furnishing false information and conspiring to delete accounts from the system and defraud Revenue. He was sentenced to two years in jail.
Aoife Maguire, 62, of Rothe Abbey, South Circular Road Kilmainham, Dublin and a former assistant manager at the bank, was sentenced to 18 months for conspiring to delete ac- counts and defraud Revenue.
Judge McCartan stressed that banking must be built on trust and honesty. He said that Revenue played a critical role in society in collecting charges and sustaining services.
In sentencing the three former employees the judge accepted they were of previous impeccable character.
But he said this was a significant and deliberate fraud, which was well- designed, not rash and continued over time and so a prison sentence was warranted.
