Doherty welcomes guilty verdicts in conspiracy to defraud trial

The jury in a conspiracy to defraud trial will resume its deliberations this morning in relation to two former bankers of Irish Life & Permanent.
Yesterday, two former Anglo Irish Bank executives were found guilty of the charge and remanded on continuing bail until tomorrow.
After 38 hours of deliberations spread out over nine days, the six women and five men of what was once an enlarged jury of 15 returned yesterday afternoon with unanimous guilty verdicts against former Anglo bankers Willie McAteer and John Bowe.
Former Irish Life & Permanent executives Denis Casey and Peter Fitzpatrick are due back in the dock this morning as the jurors continue to consider the same conspiracy charge.
In a statement last evening, Donegal Deputy and Sinn Féin Finance Spokesperson Pearse Doherty welcomed the verdict.
However, he said that the two convictions on a single charge, so many years since the banking crash, showed the weakness of the state’s stance on white collar crime.
Deputy Doherty added it’s time to create a genuine system that does not tolerate reckless lending and takes white collar crime seriously.