May 22, 2005
Peer calls for Phil Flynn bank probe
Scott Millar
A MEMBER of the House of Lords is demanding an investigation into whether security checks were carried out before Phil Flynn was appointed chairman of the Bank of Scotland in Ireland.
Lord Laird, an Ulster peer, is pushing for an inquiry on both sides of border into Flynn’s tenure at the bank between 2001 and last February. Flynn stepped down from his position earlier this year after his home and business were searched by the Criminal Assets Bureau as part of a garda inquiry into alleged IRA money-laundering.
Laird will raise the issue in the British upper house on Tuesday, and expects to meet Bertie Ahern, the taoiseach, in Dublin on Friday.
He is questioning how Flynn received clearance to take up chairmanship of both the Bank of Scotland and the state-owned ICC bank, when he was known to have been arrested and charged in the 1970s in connection with republican activity and continued to maintain contacts with leading republicans. Laird wants to know whether Sinn Fein members or supporters borrowed money from the Bank of Scotland while Flynn was its Irish chairman.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1622455,00.html