Watchdog on white-collar crime will need to show its teeth

The Corporate Enforcement Authority promises to beef up Ireland’s protections against corporate crime, with more independence, more funding, more staff and more collaboration with the Gardaí to help it to succeed where the ODCE failed

Ian Drennan, director of the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement: set out to ‘professionalise’ the office when he took over in 2012. Picture: Orla Murray/SON Photo

In 2017, nearly a decade after the implosion of Anglo Irish Bank, the trial of its former chief executive and chairman Sean FitzPatrick, over personal loans taken from the bank, came to a whimpering halt.

Acquitting FitzPatrick on all charges of fraud on the basis that he could not receive a fair trial, Mr Justice John Aylmer turned his attention to the botched investigation carried out by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement ...