Fingers

by Richard Curran

  As a result of his years of preparation, Fingleton proved a formidable witness when Tarbett called him back to the stand in 1983. He was on top of his brief, having worked hard to get to the bottom of what had happened. Johnson recalled: ‘He did extremely well handling the situation. Michael Fingleton called me into a mini war cabinet to help handle the situation. He was firm, tough and absolutely resolute that it all would be done in the open. There would be no cover-up of anything.’ Johnson said while Fingleton was tough he was ‘not unreasonable. For example on two occasions I asked him to help people who didn’t meet the usual loan criteria for mortgages. They were people of great personal integrity. On both occasions he did speak to them and he gave them both mortgages. Neither of them let him down.’

  Tony Farmar recalled:

  [Fingleton] reckons it took him two years to sort out the mess. Eventually he put together a package and in effect forced the bank to repay. One of the points the bank had failed to do was insist on second signatures. They had made mistakes.

  He felt put out that on his watch it had happened. He had been the promoter of a sort of business like Concern and to have this happen with a businessman … he felt a bit miffed and a bit put out that the person he had promoted and was in favour of had done this. There was an element of feeling responsible to get it right again.

  Not everybody agreed that Tarbett should be pursued legally, Farmar said.

  There was some pressure. As in all of these things there was a big temptation to hush it up. There was a lot of pressure to sweep it under the carpet. There was another point … ‘If we started opening the sea cocks God knows what we will find.’ He said, ‘We didn’t know quite what else was there. We knew what we could see but maybe there was other stuff.’ He took the view that it was actually the responsible thing to do to take the case.

  Tarbett was extremely well connected to the clergy and what have you. And of course you know the Irish way: it is always assumed the individual is right and the organisation is wrong. There is always an assumption that there is a nasty organisation beating up the unfortunate individual.

  Facing his former friend in the courtroom, Fingleton showed little sign of strain or emotion. ‘I don’t think Michael had any difficulty. He was fair-minded but tough,’ Éanna Johnson said. ‘He would have had a personal liking for the guy but he was in no doubt [that he needed to be prosecuted].’

  By questioning Fingleton on the matter, Tarbett hoped to show that it was not unusual for Concern to be lax with its bank accounts. Fingleton was having none of it. ‘Nothing improper’, he stated categorically, had ever happened in relation to overseas spending by Concern as long as he was there. He added that disciplinary action had never been required against anybody until now.

  Tarbett put it to Fingleton that he had brought to his attention various problems with overseas accounts, and ‘nothing much had been done about it.’ Fingleton said he could not recall such complaints. He did admit there had been occasional problems overseas, but these were of an honest nature.

  Tarbett made little headway against Fingleton. Instead the evidence against Tarbett kept mounting as a series of bank managers, Concern employees and donors gave their testimony.

  On 13 July, Tarbett finally convinced the court to unfreeze a sum ‘not greater than £2,000’ to allow him mount a proper legal defence. Bill Shipsey, then an up-and-coming senior counsel, agreed to take on the case. Tarbett’s defence now began to call witnesses.

  Its first was Charles McCarthy of the Blackrock branch of Bank of Ireland, where Tarbett had borrowings. Tarbett knew there were rumours that he had stolen money from Concern to plough into a mansion in Co. Kerry worth £150,000 and he was anxious for McCarthy to clear the matter up. McCarthy told the court that Tarbett and his wife had only a 20 per cent stake in the property.

  Shipsey then questioned Aengus Finucane on financial practices in the charity. Despite tough questioning, Finucane proved a reliable witness, and little headway was gained.

  Father Michael Doheny, a founding member of Concern, did admit under questioning that Concern sometimes had ‘loose arrangements’ when it came to monitoring its many bank accounts. But he was definite that money had never gone missing before.

  As Tarbett struggled to convince the jury, he finally decided on Thursday 16 July to address them directly. The next day’s Irish Independent reported:

  He said that the jury might have been confused by the picture painted of Concern by witnesses for the prosecution. It was implied that it was a tightly run organisation rather similar to a normal business and there was a chain of command from the council downwards, Tarbett said. There was also evidence given that there was a tight system to handle all expenditure with strict budgetary controls. This was not the case, Tarbett insisted.

  He told the jury he was prepared to draw back a veil and reveal what Concern was about, but that he would not do this in any spirit of bitter or rancour despite what happened to him. ‘When you are at the bottom of the barrel, as I have been for the past few months, not many people want you, but when you become successful, you start out as someone important or as someone who should not be questioned.’

  Tarbett then described travelling to Tanzania, Yemen, America, England, Brussels, Geneva, Bangladesh, Calcutta and Singapore. He repeated Concern’s admission that it had overseas bank accounts, not all of which were audited. He said he had questioned this ‘from time to time,’ and he maintained that it was not unusual for huge sums to be in the control of a small number of individuals. ‘At times there was confusion and money was misspent or the budget exceeded, but on no occasion was I pointing any fingers at anybody,’ he said, in a pointed reference to Fingleton and other senior figures in Concern.

  In the early years the ‘cupboard was bare,’ he said, and he had covered many of his own expenses. There was an agreement in his contract that he would be reimbursed; and this was the reason, he argued—rather unconvincingly—that large sums of money had ended up in his bank account.

  Essentially, the Irish Independent concluded, ‘Mr Tarbett maintained that the factors which he might be found guilty of were carelessness, extravagance, and not to have kept a miser-like account of his expenses and outgoings.’

  ——

  On Friday 15 July 1983 arguments concluded. Judge Gleeson told the jury they had been asked to consider a ‘very disagreeable case.’ Tarbett was highly educated and successful but they must not allow either sympathy or vindictiveness to cloud their judgement. He told them to ‘take a good look at the defendant,’ who he described as ‘an impressive man, well cultured, good mannered and polite, and find out whether underneath that he was a clever exploiter of the bonanza that came his way.’

  The jury should consider that Tarbett blamed the committee and council of Concern for his situation. ‘You might think he, as chief executive, could have rectified any looseness.’ They should also think about whether the looseness was of his own making, to allow a ‘dishonest mentality to play ducks and drakes with Concern money and to live well.’

  After one hour the jury returned. Tarbett was found guilty of all ten charges relating to the embezzlement of £240,000 between September 1978 and August 1981.

  He asked for sentencing to be adjourned so that he could be allowed to plead mitigating circumstances. His counsel asked for bail, but this was refused. ‘Honestly, I think in the long run it would be more merciful for you to remain in custody,’ the judge told him. In response to Michael McDowell, counsel for the state, who suggested that a week’s adjournment might be appropriate, the judge said: ‘The sooner this poor fellow is put out of pain and knows what’s facing him the better.’ Tarbett’s wife broke down when she heard that he was to be held in custody until sentencing. His family embraced him and clung to him as he was handcuffed and led out to a prison van. The nine-day trial, attended on most days by Fingleton, was finally over.

  Afterwards an unnamed former colleague told the Irish Independent that Tarbett was a ‘
Walter Mitty, who liked everything to be as he wanted. I think he was afraid of being a failure. He probably used the money to influence people to like him. He gave the impression of being a big spender and a genial host … but in reality he was a lonely and insecure man.’

  The following Thursday at 10 a.m. sentence was delivered. In his favour, Tarbett had no previous convictions and had never been before the courts before. But character references from Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich and Father Austin Flannery, a friend of Tarbett’s for twenty-five years, among others, were not enough to save him. Father Flannery said, ‘I could never see Tarbett as a crook or a person who would put personal gain before his duty to his employer. He took his role in life very seriously and had a missionary zeal.’

  Dr Tom Walsh also testified in his friend’s defence. ‘He had a tremendous interest in the Third World and was a man of the highest possible integrity. His life-style was absolutely modest. He was probably overworked in this period …’

  The most emotional moment came when Mary Tarbett described how her husband had taken on the job only on a part-time basis but that gradually it had taken up more and more of his time. ‘My view of my husband will never change, and my respect for him is unique.’

  In pronouncing sentence, Judge Gleeson said: ‘I believe that the accused had locked himself into a world of belief where he was the philanthropic Sir Bountiful, not subject to his employers … I am not made of stone,’ he said, ‘and I pity you.’ Tarbett was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment.

  Afterwards it was hard to understand why Tarbett had felt compelled to take so much money. ‘There was no evidence that he spent the money on women or drink or that he was a heavy gambler,’ the Irish Independent concluded. Yes, he had enjoyed a ‘jet-set’ life and drove a ‘flashy’ car, but he had also helped transform Concern from a small organisation into a major agency for overseas development.

  Whatever his reasons, Tarbett’s reputation was ruined. The former seminary student and successful publisher was finished. His reputation and his career never recovered.

  A hard lesson had been learnt also by Concern. It kept growing and is now the biggest and most professional development agency in the country. Michael Fingleton too went on to greater success. Whether he learnt from Alex Tarbett’s experience, however, is more debatable.

  As the years went by, Fingleton was certainly happy with the acknowledgement of his role in the prosecution of his former friend and in ultimately forcing AIB to accept that it was negligent and should repay the missing money in full. A flattering profile in Irish Business in July 1985 concluded: ‘It may be assumed that Fingleton played a role in persuading AIB to make this handsome gesture.’

  The lack of greater acknowledgement in Believing in Action seemed to rankle with Fingleton, a sign of his ego. Tony Farmar recalled a chilliness at the launch of the book in 2002 by the former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.

  I suspect that he did feel quite personal about it and that’s why he hammered at it so hard. Maybe he felt it was too cool an assessment of all that hard work. We all feel that we are insufficiently praised. I don’t think he thought I gave him enough credit for AIB. He wasn’t particularly happy about the way I expressed this.

  Farmar read from the relevant page of his book.

  Michael Fingleton devoted himself to forcing the bank to repay the money. He was so successful that Concern was very quickly able to announce [that] the bank had already repaid £200,000 in funds and would make sure the rest was recovered. After some shadow boxing the bank behaved well and the money was paid.

  As he looked up from his book he remarked: ‘There was a certain amount of disgruntlement that I didn’t give him enough credit. He got back everything that was stolen. He got it all. He was very proud of that. He was like, “Yeah, I did it!” to me with slightly clenched teeth.’

  Chapter 2

  FROM TOBERCURRY TO THE TOP FLOOR

  A layer of dust covered Michael Fingleton’s old desk on the top floor of Nationwide House at Grand Parade, Dublin 6.

  It was September 2012, and on all six floors helmeted workers were ripping out the building’s innards. Within six weeks they were to have it ready for the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, the state’s bank set up to manage the winding down of the society and its toxic sister Anglo Irish Bank.

  The shiny raised lettering of Irish Nationwide’s name across the front of the building had been ripped down two years earlier. Only the untouched top floor and the handles of its grand entrance, which still bore the society’s initials, remained of the institution Fingleton had ruled like a feudal lord, doling out billions to developers while ruling his staff and smaller borrowers with an iron rod.

  Fingleton’s green leather chair had deep creases from his years in charge. In front of him had sat politicians, sports stars, journalists and developers who had come to get a loan, ask a favour or beg a dig-out in their time of need. For more detailed conversation, whether on how to rezone a field for housing or how to borrow money to buy an extravagant holiday home, there was a round table at the front of his office. At this table, with its four chairs, Fingleton would pore over plans and numbers as he worked out where the society should lend, lend, lend.

  Along the wall was an inlaid wooden bookcase with lockable drawers in which he kept his most sensitive files as well as room for a large television, where he could view video presentations from developers. The door to the left of his desk opened into his secretary’s office, where big borrowers or cronies were left waiting on a long green sofa. To his right was the society’s impressive boardroom, where the decisions Fingleton had already made were rubberstamped.

  Fingleton had bought the premises in 1994 when he successfully bid for the former offices of P. J. Carroll, the cigarette manufacturers, and had converted the building, which had also once contained a cinema, into his headquarters. Under his supervision the society combined functions not unlike those of the previous occupants: spewing out toxicity and indulging in fantasy.

  Fingleton’s office was messy when he was there, but he had stripped it clean of every piece of paper when he finally left it in 2009 as the extent of his catastrophic rule began to emerge.

  It was hard to imagine in the autumn of 2012. The office was full of light. At each end of the room it had panoramic views of Dublin city and county. His love of property had shown itself in the way so many buildings in view of his office had been financed by his decisions at Irish Nationwide. He could watch the city progress, like a real-life monopoly board.

  Behind his desk Fingleton could see up towards the Dublin Mountains and Sandyford, while in front of him stretched the heart of the south city. Bang in the middle of his viewpoint when he was sitting at his desk was the distinctive outline of the Central Bank building in Dame Street. With its twelve steel trusses running down its façade to hold up each floor, it was an imposing building that was hard to miss. For Fingleton during the four decades he was in charge, however, it might as well have been invisible.

  ——

  Michael Patrick Fingleton was born on 26 January 1938. His father was a garda, and Michael was second-youngest in a family of two brothers and two sisters. He grew up on the Mountain Road in Tobercurry, Co. Sligo.

  The young Fingleton attended Holy Family Primary School between 1942 and 1946 before going on to St Joseph’s Boys’ School. At the age of thirteen he was sent to boarding school, St Nathy’s College in Ballaghaderreen, the cathedral town on the Mayo-Roscommon border. Classmates included the greyhound trainers Charlie Faul and Luke Kilcoyne.

  St Nathy’s was a fee-paying school, but it was no holiday camp. More than two hundred boarders attended the school, which was in a former military barracks and had similarly strict rules. Fingleton recalled in his interview in Strategy in July 1998: ‘It was a tough school, with no frills. It taught me to stand on my own two feet and I benefited from the discipline. If you’d notions or affectations they were belted out of you. After school I spent three years in
All Hallows.’

  The frugal life of the seminary in Drumcondra, Dublin, Fingleton realised was not for him. When asked decades later by a journalist, Patricia O’Reilly, why he dropped out, he murmured something about ‘being another Bishop Casey,’ in reference to the Bishop of Galway who resigned in 1992 after it emerged that he had fathered a child. ‘Strangely, it’s as a Bishop you’d see him, never as a priest,’ O’Reilly noted in her flattering profile in Strategy, which concluded: ‘Michael Fingleton is a basic man with in-built confidence, a golden tongue and an aura of success.’

  Money as well as the flesh, it seems, was already tempting Fingleton. ‘The whole set-up was so antediluvian, or maybe I was just too commercial to take to it,’ Fingleton recalled.

  In 1961 he got his first taste of banking by joining a small outfit called Allied Irish Finance. This gave him the money to start a bachelor of commerce course at night in UCD. In 1966 he joined the Dairy Disposal Company, which was charged by the government with taking over and rationalising ailing creameries in the west of Ireland.

  In 1967 Fingleton completed his degree and in rapid succession gained a first place in his chartered secretary exams and qualified as a certified accountant. The Dairy Disposal Company ran creameries, cattle stations and cheese factories, and as Fingleton travelled around them he became familiar with the fields he would later come to feel were development land worth millions of pounds. It also introduced him to the culture of ‘strokes’ and favours that dominates Irish politics. He later recalled in interviews that a politician once recommended seven different candidates for the position of manager in a creamery. Each recommendation was acknowledged, and seven families’ votes were won. That taught him, he said, about Irish politics.