Former Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS) managing director Michael Fingleton has admitted he failed to read internal audit reports at the failed building lender and signed letters to the financial regulator without reading them.
A Central Bank of Ireland inquiry into the lender’s €5.4 billion ($6.24 billion) collapse is looking at whether the society’s credit committee failed to scrutinize large commercial loans in arrears, its exposure to specific customers, or highlighted risks.
Fingleton was asked about an internal audit report from August 2007, but the former managing director of one of Ireland’s oldest financial institutions said he couldn’t recall the report and was “not clear” on whether it was brought to his attention. “This report was probably left on my desk or left with someone in my office before audit committee meetings,” he said at a hearing on the inquiry. “I have no recollection of seeing that report. If I looked at it, I would probably read the minutes, flicked through it. If it was deemed good or satisfactory, I would have put it down.”