As shocking as it might be to think it, many in the TTF community in Ireland are of the view that the toxic culture at the Post Office that has been so brilliantly exposed by the recent ITV docuseries “Alan Bates v the Post Office” has similarities with the culture in the Central Bank of Ireland, which is that country’s primary financial regulator. 

For the avoidance of any doubt we believe that the vast majority of employees at the Central Bank of Ireland are good, honest people doing an important job well. 

But we definitely have some concerns about some of the senior leadership team and the behaviours of the organisation they are responsible for.

This event is an excellent opportunity to explore the extent to which the Central Bank of Ireland is suffering from the same kind of cultural and behavioural issues that have plagued the Post Office and caused horrendous levels of harm. 

One wonders how many of these flaws could be said of the Central Bank of Ireland:

• Refusing to properly investigate allegations of its own misconduct
• Failing to protect whistleblowers; and putting them in harm’s way
• A complete failure of all aspects of governance, due diligence and audit
• A complete failure of the Non-Executive Directors to provide sufficient scrutiny and challenge
• Persistent failure to use the statutory powers that the Oireachtas has given them to investigate wrongdoing and take enforcement action against the banks
• Dishonesty to the Oireachtas and the Courts
• Lack of effective oversight, scrutiny and challenge
• Spin-doctoring i.e. issuing deliberately misleading statements to the media
• Being morally bankrupt
• Having an unhealthily cosy relationship with those it is meant to be regulating
• Participation in what amounts to collusion, corruption and cover-up
• Malevolence towards those that don’t comply and try to ‘fight back’
• Thinking about their own reputations and jobs first and foremost
• Being willing to take actions and make decisions that cause extreme damage to people’s lives; including decisions and actions that result in suicides

What do you think?

And in particular, what do you think about the way it has handled issues such as: 

• The Vulture Funds
• Mortgage Fraud
• Foreclosure Fraud
• Land Registry “irregularities”
• The Ulster Bank scandal
• Many other kinds of malpractice, malfeasance, misconduct, mis-selling and even outright fraud by the banks

We should be mindful of what Lord Arbuthnot has said about the UK Post Office:

“This was a Government organisation being overseen by Government representatives and it’s the Government that has to take responsibility for everything that went wrong. 

It’s a distinctly corrupt, murky story that goes right into Government, and it’s deeply worrying.”

One wonders about the extent to which the same can be said about the Central Bank of Ireland; let’s see.