The Director of Corporate Enforcement, Paul Appleby, is still desperately trying to convince anyone willing to listen that his office served the public interest in the DCC/Flavin fraud case.
The point of a High Court inspection is to get to the bottom of things. That was achieved with the inspectors’ report.
He essentially concluded that there was no deliberate wish to evade the law.
We obviously accept that. We felt, and still feel, that we discharged a valuable public-interest role in uncovering many of the events and issues.
The Supreme Court had already found that DCC had engaged in serious fraud but this finding was essentially dismissed by a mere High Court inspector who effectively apologised to Flavin and DCC for any inconvenience caused.
Appleby also pointed out that the High Court inspector found that DCC had made a ‘costly error’ when illegally dealing in Fyffes shares in 2000.
Isn’t it incredible that one of the most senior law enforcement officers in the state can casually state that the ‘illegal’ trading of stocks was nothing more than a costly ‘error’?
The word ‘illegal’ has two different meanings in Ireland.
When the state is using the word in relation to cases like the DCC fraud it is just a series of letters beginning with ‘i’ and ending in ‘l’, it has no other meaning and therefore no further action is necessary.
For ordinary citizens the word always means police, arrest, courts and frequently – jail.