THE FORMER chairman of Irish Nationwide, Michael Walsh, has said anyone who was involved in banking during the crisis was unhappy with what had happened.
Speaking as he arrived at Dublin airport on Friday night off a flight from London, Dr Walsh was replying to a question about whether he felt any remorse about the cost of the lender's bailout or with what had happened at the now State-controlled lender. He declined to comment on the Government's move to double the State's bailout of Irish Nationwide from €2.7 billion to €5.4 billion last week due to higher than expected losses on property loans.
He also had no comment on his stewardship as chairman of the building society or the management of the institution by former chief executive Michael Fingleton.
Dr Walsh said that it "isn't true" to say Irish Nationwide did not have an effective board.
A former professor of banking and finance at UCD, Dr Walsh joined the board of Irish Nationwide in 2001 and was in charge of the board of the building society over the period when it lent heavily to a small group of property developers and investors.