The former Irish Permanent managing director, Dr Edmund Farrell, sought to extract large sums of money from the company, the High Court has been told. Dr Farrell hoped to receive £1.3 million in compensation from the building society for reducing his annual salary from £160,000 to £60,000, Mr Paul Gallagher SC, for the Irish Permanent, claimed.
Mr Gallagher was speaking on the second day of the hearing of actions and counter-actions involving the building society, Dr Farrell and other defendants. He said there were two or three occasions on which substantial sums, usually close to £150,000, were paid to a secret trustee who passed them on to Dr Farrell. Mr Gallagher said one of the main reasons Dr Farrell wanted to reduce his salary was because he was "obsessed" with preventing any publicity about his "unique" service agreement with the building society, which included a promise he would be engaged as its head until December 31st, 2012.
The court also heard that one of Dr Farrell's associates, Mr Kelvin Smythe, had asked the society to pay Dr Farrell £2 million. This was never paid but Mr Gallagher claimed £100,000 was paid and was used to pay for a property on Lough Corrib, Co Galway.