Sir, - Frank McNally's satirical summary of the Moriarty tribunal circus had become compulsive reading and will be missed. His hypothesis of Charlie Haughey possibly adopting a Falstaffian stance toward his "debt of honour" would seem to be quite in character when we recall his retirement speech in the Dail: "I have done the State some service. . ." Our ex-Taoiseach's affinity with Shakespeare however, did not apparently embrace the advice of Polonius to Laertes: "Neither a borrower nor a lender be".
Many readers however, must be feeling somewhat peeved at their own temerity in the past in not calling on their own friendly AIB manager with the simple request that their piffling £5,000 overdraft be treated as a debt of honour and placed in a non-interest-bearing account.
In more serious vein, the board of AIB has serious questions to answer for shareholders. On July 27th Mr Haughey told the tribunal, in respect of his £110,000 debt "They [AIB] never came to me. . . they never mentioned it since and quite frankly, I'd forgotten about it". Under the terms set out in a letter of January 24th, 1980 from AIB to Mr Haughey, a debit balance was agreed at £860,000; the deeds of Inishvickillane and a house and lands in Sligo were held as security for this debt. Some 10 years later, Haughey's solicitor sought and obtained the return of these deeds from AIB. Yet the debt was never paid. Can the chairman explain this for us?
All AIB shareholders should now write to him requesting that a letter be sent to Mr Haughey seeking payment of the debt. Shareholders can then look forward to reading in the next annual report that Mr Haughey (being like Brutus, an honourable man) has duly discharged his debt of honour. - Yours, etc.,
J.P. McCann, Mapas Avenue, Dalkey.