Seanie Fitz Arrested For Second Time

Former Anglo Irish Bank boss Sean Fitzpatrick was released on Saturday after spending 24 hours in Garda custody.

It's the second time Fitzpatrick has been arrested for questioning in connection with alleged financial irregularities at Anglo Irish Bank.

Mr Fitzpatrick turned up by appointment at Bray Garda Station in Co. Wicklow on Friday morning.

When he got to the station at around 8.00am he was arrested and detained under the Criminal Justice Act.

After a day of questioning by detectives, he spent an uncomfortable night in jail - reportedly in the company of many drunk young men arrested for public order offences on Friday night.

He was released without charge on Saturday afternoon.

He walked past a group of waiting journalists and photographers without making any comment before being driven from the scene by his son.

The questioning was the latest development in a three-year-long investigation by the Garda Fraud Squad and the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement into activities at Anglo under Fitzpatrick's watch.

In particular there are three areas under investigation, because of suspicions that Anglo was attempting to mislead auditors who were compiling end of year financial statements.

These were: the hiding of loans owed by Mr Fitzpatrick to Anglo, which were transferred on a short terms basis to Irish Nationwide Building Society over an eight year period, the lodging of €7.5bn in short term deposits into Anglo by Irish Life and

Permanent at the end of its financial year in September 2008, and the "golden circle" of long-term clients of Anglo, who bought shares worth 10 per cent of the bank from businessman Sean Quinn using loans from Anglo itself.

Sean Fitzpatrick resigned as chairman of Anglo in 2008 when news of financial irregularities at the bank first emerged.

This week's arrest was the second time during the investigation he has been arrested - Gardai had to satisfy a judge that there was new evidence which Mr Fitzpatrick had to answer before they were issued an arrest warrant.

Anglo, which has been nationalized and is now being wound down under the name Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, has cost Irish taxpayers almost €30 billion since the start of the economic crisis, and could end up costing closer to €50 billion by the time the issues around it are fully resolved.

No-one has yet been charged with any criminal offence despite a three year investigation.

Former finance director at Anglo, William McAteer, was also arrested for a second time and released last month.

So far, the former chief executive at Anglo, David Drumm, who moved to Boston with his family after resigning just before Anglo's nationalization, has refused to return to Ireland to co-operate with the investigation.

Fitzpatrick, who lives in Wicklow, has become the name most associated with the Irish economic meltdown and Anglo's collapse.