Bankers shamed

last updated 8 January 2015

Dublin

The chief executive of the Bank of Ireland quit this week after he got caught surfing porn and prostitution Web sites on his office computer. Michael Soden admitted that he had browsed a Las Vegas escort agency site that had links to hard-core porn. “It was a silly incident,” Soden said. “It was a case of curiosity killed the cat.” The Irish financial world was already reeling from the disclosure that seven former and three current executives of Allied Irish Banks were under investigation for massive tax evasion. One of the former executives, Tom Mulcahy, was forced this week to resign from his current job as head of the Irish national airline, Aer Lingus. “It can’t get much worse,” said Prime Minister Bertie Ahern. “Just about everything that has come out has been disturbing and upsetting.”