AIB nationalised amidst the explusion of Irish Times journalists at Dublin’s High Court – the shape of things to come

In what seems like a low point in Irish jurisprudence, the Irish Times reports a judge at the High Court this morning agreed to exclude two journalists from the Irish Times from a hearing which saw some €3.7bn taken from the pension reserve and injected into a bank with little prospect of a return. The judge, Ms Justice Maureen Clark not only acquiesced to the Minister for Finance’s legal representative’s demand to exclude the two journalists but she then refused to entertain any notion of the exclusion being challenged/appealed. All because we are told the matters at hand were commercially sensitive. Whilst some matters may have been sensitive, surely not all of them were. Furthermore there is a reasonably sound history of journalistic integrity in this State when a judge bars reporting on proceedings but that doesn’t mean journalists are excluded from hearings.  Simon Carswell at the Irish Times was one of the two journalists excluded and he reports of at least one other exclusion – a solicitor with a watching brief on behalf of an interested party.

The Irish Times reports on the judge’s determination where she agreed to a scheme which sees the State taking a 49.9% interest in AIB today with frankly jiggery pokery whereby the State’s proper ownership of AIB (put at 92.8%) is deferred until AIB disposes of its 70.5% interest in the Polish Bank Zachodni WBK.  AIB’s shares are to be de-listed and transferred to a grey exchange so they will still have value. There is no news on AIB’s €4bn of subordinated debtholders. There will be fuller analysis on here later.