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Today's releases mean five letters to or from Brian Lenihan in November 2010 - out of 12 - have been published. Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland

Lenihan letters: What’s been released, and what hasn’t

The release of further documents this week help to shed further light on Ireland’s bailout. But what don’t we know?

THE RELEASE by the Department of Finance of two key letters written by Brian Lenihan – formally applying for a bailout, and explaining why Ireland had been forced to do so – helps to shed further light on the circumstances surrounding our economic malaise.

The letters are among three pieces of correspondence which had previously been withheld by the Department in the face of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, but which have now been released after the documents were made public through other means.

The release of three letters means there are now five pieces of correspondence between Lenihan and his international colleagues which are now in the public domain. However, other crucial letters which shaped Ireland’s economic destiny remain unpublished.

So – what’s been released, what do we know, and what’s left to come out?

Below is a list of 12 documents sent between Lenihan and the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the IMF, and the British Treasury in November 2010 – the month that the bailout happened.

The list is based on a schedule of records compiled by the Department of Finance in response to an FOI request by this website last year. (That original schedule of records can be seen here.)

1. November 2: Fax from the IMF to Brian Lenihan

Four pages. Refused from FOI requests because Irish law exempts any communications between the State and “any international organisation of states”, including an institution or body of the EU.

2. November 2: Letter from Jean-Claude Trichet to Lenihan

Three pages. The letter, which is only tangentially related to the bailout, is the ECB’s legal opinion on a draft version of laws to extend the bank guarantee scheme. The final version of that law was signed by Lenihan on November 19.

3. November 4: Letter from Lenihan to Trichet

Two pages. This letter was refused on the same basis as the IMF fax mentioned above, and also because: “This record contains information, access to which could reasonable be expected to have a serious adverse effect on the financial interests of the State or on the ability of the Government to manage the national economy”.

The offer responsible for making the decision on whether to release this letter decided it was “not in the public interest to release this record”.

4. November 4: Letter from Lenihan to Olli Rehn

Two pages. This letter was refused for the same reasons as the IMF fax – that the communication was between Ireland and the EU or one of its subsidiaries.

5. November 5: Fax from Christopher Towe of the IMF

Four pages. This document is totally unrelated to the bailout; Lenihan was sent a copy of the message as a courtesy. Ironically enough, the message was actually sent to the Central Bank – inviting it to a course on ‘identifying systemic risk’. This was, evidently, three days after the IMF started discussing a possible programme with Lenihan.

6. November 18: Letter from Trichet to Lenihan

This is where accounts of the timeline begin to differ. Both Brian Lenihan and a former advisor, Alan Aherne, say Ireland received a letter from Trichet the Friday before a meeting of EU finance ministers – one which began to pressure Ireland into seeking a bailout. The EU finance ministers met on Wednesday 17 and Thursday 18 of November.

The Irish Times, reporting on this sequence of correspondence a few weeks ago, said there was a phone call between the two on the 12th – but that it appeared “likely that an email or fax” had first been sent, prompting Lenihan to call Trichet in the first place.

The schedule of communications compiled by the Department of Finance and sent to us last year does not mention any communication – of any sort – between the two on November 12. While phone records would not have been included in this schedule, an email or fax would have been.

Irrespective of this, the two-page letter of November 18 was likely not intimately related to the bailout: it would not be uncommon for ECB presidents to send circulars to Eurozone finance ministers immediately after (or even during) a summit.

The letter was nonetheless withheld for the reasons mentioned above – that it is correspondence between Ireland and an international body, and is therefore exempt.

7. November 19: Letter for Trichet to Lenihan

This is the ‘big one’ – the letter where Trichet is said to have threatened to pull ECB funding from Irish banks if Ireland did not enter a bailout. Unfortunately, it’s also the one guarded with the most secrecy.

Such is the level of secrecy, in fact, that the schedule of documents from the Department of Finance did not even say how long the letter was.

The Department of Finance withheld it for three reasons:

- As with the other documents, it’s a letter between Ireland and an international body of states, and is legally exempt;

- The records were received “in confidence and on the understanding that it would be treated as confidential”. There is a public interest test applied in this case, but it was decided that it was “not in the public interest” to release the letter;

- As with the letter on November 4, releasing the letter could have a serious adverse effect on Ireland’s ability to govern and manage its financial affairs. It was therefore, again, decided that it was not in the public interest to release the records.

Gavin Sheridan of TheStory.ie separately asked the ECB to release this letter; in a response issued in February, Mario Draghi – Trichet’s successor as ECB president – refused an appeal to release it.

“The ECB must be in a position to convey pertinent and candid messages to European and national authorities of the euro area in the manner judged to be the most effective to serve the public interest,” Draghi himself wrote.

“Confidential communication must be possible and should not be undermined by the prospect of disclosure.”

8. November 21: Lenihan to Trichet

This is Lenihan’s response to Trichet’s closely-guarded missive, and had originally been withheld by the Department of Finance (but subsequently released and received by TheJournal.ie today).

The letter was originally withdrawn solely on the basis that it was communication with an international body, and therefore legally exempt from FOI law.

However, FOI law provides that information which is already in the public domain can be released anyway. Given that Sheridan has now been able to get the ECB to release this letter, the Department of Finance has retrospectively approved TheJournal.ie‘s request and released it.

In the letter, Lenihan focuses on the problems that the Irish banking sector has caused – and, for the first time, tells Trichet that Ireland’s going to apply for a bailout.

9. November 21: Letter from Lenihan to Trichet, Olli Rehn and Dominique Strauss-Kahn

The single, one-page letter – again, originally withheld for the usual reasons by the Department, but retrospectively released now – in which Lenihan applies for a bailout.

“The Irish Authorities will cooperate fully in the preparation of the joint EU-IMF programme of assistance to the Irish state that will now be required to be developed.”

10 and 11. November 30: Letters from Lenihan to Rehn

There are technically two letters involved here.

The first is a two-page letter from Lenihan to his European counterparts, formally asking that Ireland be excused from funding future bailouts to Greece or anyone else who gets money from the European Financial Stability Facility. This was provided for in EFSF rules, and was quickly approved.

The second is a one-page cover letter, where Lenihan summarises his application for Rehn.

The first letter remains withheld for the usual reasons; the second had also been withheld until this week’s developments.

12. November 30: Letter from George Osborne to EU finance ministers

This is a two-page letter in which Osborne, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, discusses proposals to increase financial stability.

It was exempt from release for two reasons: firstly, because it “contains information communicated by a person acting on behalf of another government”. This is therefore legally barred from release.

The second reason for it being withheld is that it, like earlier examples, contains information which – if made public – could “have a serious adverse effect on the financial interests of the State”.

Read: Released: Brian Lenihan’s letter where Ireland asks for a bailout

In full: Brian Lenihan tells the ECB why Ireland needs a bailout

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24 Comments
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    Mute Chrissy Beanz
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    Oct 24th 2012, 6:05 PM

    I am still waiting to see a list of those who were in attendance at that crucial meeting when ‘with a stroke of a pen’ the debts of the banking sector became the debts of the Irish people. Then I want to see the minutes of that meeting, that is of course, if it was minuted at all. I have my doubts.

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    Mute Ulick McGee
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    Oct 24th 2012, 7:00 PM

    Some interesting names have been mentioned regarding who was staliking around leinster house that night. DD for one

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    Mute MrKnow
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    Oct 24th 2012, 10:11 PM

    well said chrissy!

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    Mute Rory Conway
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    Oct 24th 2012, 5:41 PM

    I am fixated [unashamedly] on the question as to whether Ministers Ahern and Dempsey knew of all this when they gave their joint comments to RTE that there was no question of Intervention. It seems that the interview in question was given on the 12th November 2010. Does the thread above help ?

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    Mute hjGfIgAq
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    Oct 24th 2012, 6:04 PM

    Dermot Ahern made his comments on The Week in Politics on November 14. This was two days after Trichet’s supposedly confrontational phone call, so it would seem accurate that – at that point at least – there weren’t any formal negotiations underway.

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    Mute The kop
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    Oct 24th 2012, 6:26 PM

    EVERYTHING should be released…. simple as that…..it’s criminal that anything should be kept from us….and the very practice of keeping these letters/fax’s whatever they were from us is doing nothing but creating a very anti european feeling in this country…. im off the firm belief i have to say that we were not given a choice and were indeed forced to take the bailout….

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    Mute Rory Conway
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    Oct 24th 2012, 6:30 PM

    Gavan, you are correct . Certainly no “formal ” negotiations. However Trichet to Lenihan of the 14th November suggests earlier correspondence or otherwise why did he write it. In the context of the Ahern/Dempsey interview it brings the timeline down to two days . Seems remarkable. Any previous letter from Ireland would see to have been prior to the critical date which is the 12th Nov. lets go for this. Any ideas?

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    Mute Rory Conway
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    Oct 24th 2012, 7:10 PM

    Gavan , this is running on two threads. One is this the other is on the more main thread in Journal under the heading “Trichet” . Can they be amalgamated ?
    The real point I want to make is that Trichet wrote to Lenihan on the 2nd of Nov. 2010. Surely this was in response to something. What? Guys like him don’t write love letters. It seems to me that in the given context of my writing to this page , the matter had been discussed at Cabinet level . If this is correct , and it is a n “if”,what were Ahern and Dempsey saying on the 12thNov?
    Gavan , can you get that on to the other thread and prevent confusion, please!

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    Mute Jason Bourne
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    Oct 24th 2012, 8:29 PM

    Keep it up Rory. You are on the right track as regards your line of questioning.

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    Mute B Collins
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    Oct 24th 2012, 8:39 PM

    I’d murder a good Wikileak right now.

    36
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    Mute MrKnow
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    Oct 24th 2012, 5:47 PM

    where is the letter from that French Todd licker to the government before Ireland was forced into this bailout? that’s the letter i want to see!

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    Mute Una Dev
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    Oct 24th 2012, 6:06 PM

    Frog Trichet…

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    Mute Ian Walsh
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    Oct 24th 2012, 7:07 PM

    We, the Irish people, need to demand a change to the freedom of information act and/or constitution that will facilitate the release of any/all information relating to this or future crisis. We should have the solemn right to see this information as it is affecting the lives of every man, woman and child in this country both now and for decades to come. It seems our politicians can act with impunity. If there is one thing I have learned from this “crisis” its that democracy is but an illusion.

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    Mute Seán Mc Cormack
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    Oct 24th 2012, 6:43 PM

    When I take a particularly large crap, I don’t post that nugget of information on Facebook as it isn’t in the interest of the public. However, the truth behind what our elected representatives do for our country (without telling us) very much is!

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    Mute Rory Conway
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    Oct 24th 2012, 7:53 PM

    Ian ,sadly,you are right.I cannot see why withholding this information is in the public interest.

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    Mute Nuala Reid
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    Oct 24th 2012, 11:22 PM

    they wont release the letters cos it would have an adverse affect on the governments ability to manage financial affairs!!!! wtf thats why we are in this mess in the first place cos there was a mismanagement of our financial affairs. as citizens of ireland are we not entiltled to see these documents!!!

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    Mute Una Dev
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    Oct 24th 2012, 6:05 PM

    The economy will stagnate as long as the government keeps it’s boot on the neck of the banks.

    This is an extortion scheme.

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    Mute Paul Anthony Ward
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    Oct 24th 2012, 11:05 PM

    Very concise Gavin. Cheers.

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    Mute Odd Jobs Galore
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    Oct 25th 2012, 3:21 PM

    Lenihan, Jean Claude van damme,Oli the Elephant,Jack Dempsey, Damien Dempsey, Dempsey and Makepeace, Ozzy Ozbourne so many names of so little IMPORTANCE. “ROTHSCHILD” “QUENN ELIZABETH” “THE VATICAN” THESE ARE THE IRISH BANKING BAILOUT RECIPIENTS. THIS IS WHERE THE MONEY GOES. THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO TELL THE GOVERMENT/S WHAT TO DO .WAKE UP,STOP WASTING PRECIOUS TIME. put in a freedom of information request and get a copy of the companies that recieved the irish bailout money then look at who owns these companies. THEN ASK YOURSELF, WHY AM I WASTING MY TIME TALKING ABOUT POLITICIANS WHO HAVE ABSALOUTELY NO AUTHORITY WHAT SO EVER

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    Mute Damien Aulsberry
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    Oct 24th 2012, 8:33 PM

    7 seems to be our get out of jail card

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    Mute Karl E. Pants
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    Oct 24th 2012, 6:29 PM

    Fax? O_o

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    Mute hjGfIgAq
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    Oct 24th 2012, 6:48 PM

    Yes. Surely you’re familiar with the intricacies of Premier League Transfer Deadline Day, and the reliance of a billion-pound industry on the humble fax machine.

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    Mute Eoin Ó Nialláin
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    Oct 24th 2012, 9:23 PM

    Emails are not legally binding in industry and commerce. They can be used to show that a party knew certain information and in certain cases PDF files sent via email are formal documents (as in construction drawings) however legal contracts, etc. need to be sent via snail mail or fax. It’s the same Europe over.

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    Mute Mjhint
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    Oct 25th 2012, 12:56 AM

    Eoin not all legal documents or even normal documentation can be sent by fax legally because a fax can be altered.

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