The Department of Finance is set to wind down over the coming months the special banks shareholding and financial advisory division set up as the Government bailed out lenders during the financial crisis.
It comes as Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe is set to sell the State’s remaining shares in AIB soon and as the remains of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) and the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) are on track to move to a new resolution unit in the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) later this year.
Human resources officials told staff in the unit, which is led by Des Carville and employs around 20 people, in a memo last week that the principle functions of the bank shareholding and financial advisory division have been successfully completed and that it is now entering “a new transition phase whereby the division will be wound down”.
“There will be a number of strands to the project which will take place over the coming months and some aspects of the work of the division will remain in the Department,” the memo said.
About a dozen of the staff, including Mr Carville, are on secondment from the NTMA and will return to the agency as their roles in the Department come to an end. A spokesman for the NTMA declined to comment.
Mr Carville’s long-time right-hand man, Scott Rankin, took a career break late last year to join PTSB as head of the bank’s investor relations team.
It is expected that the civil servants currently working in the unit will ultimately take over its remaining activities, including managing the gradual sale of the Government’s remaining 57 per cent stake in PTSB.
A spokesman for the Department confirmed that staff have been advised that “a transition phase will commence shortly” for the until.
He noted that final taxpayer shares in Bank of Ireland were sold in 2022, the State’s interest in AIB is now about 3 per cent and the transfer of the remaining IBRC and Nama functions to a special resolute unit will take place later this year.
Anglo Irish Bank was renamed IBRC in 2011 and subsequently took over the activities of fellow failed lender Irish Nationwide Building Society. IBRC was put into liquidation in 2013. The bank shareholding and financial advisory division had oversight of all these developments.
The unit also had involvement in a range of cross-departmental initiatives over the years, including the establishment of the First Homes Scheme, a shared-equity programme for first-time buyers, and the Land Development Agency.
