Fingers: The Man Who Brought Down Irish Nationwide and Cost Us 5.4bn - Softcover

Tom Lyons; Richard Curran

3.65

20 ratings by Goodreads

9780717155835: Fingers: The Man Who Brought Down Irish Nationwide and Cost Us 5.4bn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0717155838 ISBN 13: 9780717155835

Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd, 2013

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Michael Fingleton was an Irish banking legend, the ultimate big money lender. He took Irish Nationwide Building Society from an obscure mortgage provider to a multi-billion euro property-lending casino, leaving the taxpayer to pick up the tab for 5.4 billion when the society eventually went bust. Fingleton earned over 2 million per year and built up a pension fund worth 27 million. But it was his loans to a small group of property developers and the way the society was mismanaged, under the nose of the Financial Regulator, that cost Irish citizens so dearly. In Fingers, Tom Lyons and Richard Curran use previously unpublished material to blow open the failings of the society s internal systems and controls, its culture and the dominance of one man. They get inside the organisation and bring startling new revelations about how money was really lent out to a small group of developers, how INBS failed, and what the Financial Regulators knew. Fingers explores Fingletons connections with politics, the media and the powerful how the society wasn't just a lender but became a player, taking stakes and shares in the profits of the ventures it bankrolled how Fingleton quaffed vintage wine in the finest restaurants, stayed in five-star hotels and put it all on the society s tab how ordinary borrowers in arrears were treated ruthlessly, while the mega-rich walked away owing billions to us. Fingers goes to the heart of the state s failure to hold anybody to account for the Irish financial crash. It highlights the need for a proper banking inquiry to explain to the public what went wrong, how, and who is to blame.

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Review:

This telling of Michael Fingleton's contribution to the bust is a far superior account of the recent crash than almost all that have gone before it - excepting Simon Carswell's stupendous Anglo Republic'. -- John Lee The Mail on Sunday Do yourselves a favour and get a copy. Sunday Independent Fingers does the important job of providing as much insight as possible into what exactly went on inside one of the institutions that has proved so costly to the Irish taxpayer. --Aoife Kavanagh Sunday Business Post Magazine

'...gives us a handy single volume account of the greed and recklessness of a whole class of bankers, developers and their political enablers.' --Gene Kerrigan Sunday Independent Living 28 April 2013

'While for a long time, the major topic of debate was Anglo Irish Bank - the subject of many reports and stories and investigations - Lyons and Curran present a highly insightful and damning first look into the real story behind Ireland's worst bank.' 'Lyons and Curran ably lead the reader through the mindfield of details, constructing a detailed, vivid, and often frightening insight into life inside Ireland's worst bank.' --Conor Forrest, InBusiness Magazine (Chambers Ireland), May 2013

About the Author:

Tom Lyons is a business journalist with the Sunday Times and co-author of The Fitzpatrick Tapes. Tom lives in Dublin. Richard Curran is a former Deputy Editor of the Sunday Business Post and continues to contribute to it as well as being presenter of Dragons' Den. Richard lives in Co Donegal.

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