Will we ever see anyone in dock over banking crash?

This autumn marks the third anniversary of the cataclysmic events of September and October 2008 when the Irish banking sector was forced to beg the State for a lifeline and the then Minister for Finance, the late Brian Lenihan, announced the taxpayer-backed guarantee to rescue the country's six main lending institutions. With such a passage of time, many are legitimately asking why no-one has yet faced any criminal charges arising out of the banking collapse which has had such deep repercussions for everyone in this country. The DPP will make a decision on whether charges should be brought once his office has received all the investigation files from gardai and the Director of Corporate Enforcement, but it could be 2012 before anyone is charged. It is clearly a massive and complex investigation and the garda fraud squad has gathered substantial volumes of evidence from internal bank documents, correspondence and other statements. However, it is a matter of immense frustration that, three years after the banking scandals that rocked the nation's economy and left taxpayers on the hook for billions of euros in bailout funds, not a single banker has yet been prosecuted. Within a matter of months of crooked financier Bernie Madoff being arrested in New York, he was on trial and has since been jailed for 150 years. The contrast with the slow pace of Irish justice could not be greater. The delay in bringing a case against errant bankers also contrasts with the speed with which a Congressional committee in Washington hauled former chief executive of collapsed bank Lehman Brothers Dick Fuld before it to answer some pointed questions about how greed governed strategy at one of the country's biggest investment banks. Although it wasn't a trial in a court of law, this hearing took place within three weeks of the bank's shock collapse, and did at least allow an angry public to see a senior banking figure squirm as politicians probed him on the huge pay and bonuses he took in the run-up to Lehman's collapse. Similarly, in the UK, when the scandal broke last year on MPs expenses, speedy investigations got underway immediately, trials took place and six errant politicians all served jail sentences for their part in fiddling their expenses. So why is it that the wheels of justice in this country grind so slowly when it comes to so-called white collar crime? In the High Court earlier this year, the Director of Corporate Enforcement was forced to apply for another extension of its three-year-long probe into Anglo Irish Bank, during which Mr Justice Peter Kelly didn't mince his words when he expressed his dissatisfaction with the pace of the investigation and expressed incredulity at the fact that the State had not yet issued criminal proceedings against those who had come into his court and admitted liability. He said the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank had had profound and serious consequence for the economic wellbeing of the country and its citizens and played no small part in seriously damaging Ireland's business reputation throughout the world. He added that the prolonged nature of the investigation and apparent failure to investigate thoroughly and expeditiously possible criminal wrongdoing in the commercial and corporate sectors did nothing to instill confidence in the Irish criminal justice system. The DPP has said his office has sufficient resources and both the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement and the Garda Commissioner were quoted earlier in the summer as saying that investigation files were up to 90 per cent complete. So, if it is not a question of either human or financial resources, could it be that there is so little experience of tackling white collar crime in this country that the investigations are proceeding with extreme caution to ensure a solid case can be built? Or could it be that there is little or no evidence of criminal behaviour in the gambles that were being taken in financial institutions. The essence of Peter Nyberg's report into the Irish banking collapse effectively spread the blame for ultimate responsibility from the financial institutions themselves to Irish society in general, with government and regulators in between, without singling out anyone in particular. The people of this country must expect anyone involved in any criminality to be brought to justice, but with such a passage of time since 2008, the likelihood of a banking figure doing a 'perp walk' any time soon becomes ever more implausible.