Anglo manager ‘asked by senior to remove a name from Revenue list’

A SENIOR manager with Anglo Irish Bank claims she was asked by the bank’s chief operations officer to remove a name from documents requested by Revenue as part of a tax evasion investigation.

Zita Vance (formerly Madden) told the trial of three former Anglo officials that she was asked by one of the accused, Tiarnan O’Mahoney, to remove the name before giving the documents to Revenue.

She said that she was no longer on the team after telling Mr O’Mahoney that she could not carry out his instructions.

Former CEO Mr O’Mahoney, 54, of Glen Pines, Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow, former company secretary Bernard Daly, 65, of Collins Avenue West, Whitehall, Dublin, and Aoife Maguire, 60, of Rothe Abbey, South Circular Road, Kilmainham, Dublin, have pleaded not guilty to seven counts at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. It is alleged they deleted or omitted accounts connected to the former chairman, Seán FitzPatrick, from Anglo’s Core Banking System or from documentation provided to Revenue between 2003 and 2004.

Yesterday Ms Vance told prosecuting counsel Dominic McGinn SC that in 2003 she was manager of treasury operations in Anglo and was assigned to head up a team which was gathering documents for Revenue on potentially bogus non-resident accounts which may have had Deposit Interest Retention Tax owing on them.

Ms Vance said she wasn’t on the team for all that long, maybe two weeks, when she was called to Mr O’Mahoney’s office.

She said she couldn’t remember the conversation but that her understanding was that she was asked to remove a name from the list that was to be given to Revenue.

After refusing to carry out the order and subsequently leaving the team, Ms Vance said she was approached by Anglo’s fraud prevention officer, Patrick Peake. She said Mr Peake had been a member of the original team which was providing documentation to Revenue. She said that instead of speaking to Mr Peake she asked to speak to his manager, Walter Tyrell, instead.

She said Mr Tyrell told her in person that the question Mr Peake was asking her was: ‘Was I asked by Tiarnan O’Mahoney, Bernard Daly, Aoife Maguire or Brian Gillespie to delete an account?’ She said that her answer was ‘Tiarnan O’Mahoney.’

The trial also heard evidence from Monica Kearney, Mr FitzPatrick’s personal assistant in 2003. She identified an email she sent to Mr O’Mahoney in November 2003 detailing four account numbers.