{"id":619046,"date":"2026-08-04T00:45:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T00:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/619046\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T00:45:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T00:45:20","slug":"michael-fingleton-former-head-of-irish-nationwide-has-died-aged-88","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/619046\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Fingleton, former head of Irish Nationwide, has died aged 88"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FORMER HEAD OF the Irish Nationwide Building Society Michael Fingleton has died at the age of 88.<\/p>\n<p>Fingleton was at the helm of the building society for nearly four decades, from 1971 up until 2009.<\/p>\n<p>He suffered a stroke in the late 2010s and endured ill health in the following years since.<\/p>\n<p>Born in\u00a01938 in Tubbercurry, Co Sligo, Fingleton studied at University College Dublin (UCD) and King\u2019s Inns and trained as an accountant.<\/p>\n<p>Before joining Irish Nationwide, he spent time at\u00a0Allied Irish Finance, the Dairy Disposal Agency and Concern.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thejournal.ie\/lengthy-civil-trial-of-former-banker-michael-fingleton-concludes-at-high-court-6847658-Oct2025\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">lengthy civil trial<\/a> that concluded last year examined accusations that Fingleton negligently mismanaged Irish Nationwide before it collapsed after failed financial and property \u201cgambles\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Fingleton denied the allegation but was unable to give evidence in the case himself due to his ill health.<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, Fingleton built up Irish Nationwide into a major player in the Irish finance sector, providing mortgages and commercial lending services. It reported assets of \u20ac16 billion in 2007.<\/p>\n<p>But <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thejournal.ie\/irish-nationwide-directors-high-court-2336990-Sep2015\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">after the financial crash<\/a>, the building society received a \u20ac5.4 billion bailout from the government and was nationalised in 2010.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Liquidators for the Irish Banking Resolution Corporation (IBRC) who took the negligent mismanagement case in the High Court case against Fingleton <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thejournal.ie\/lengthy-civil-trial-of-former-banker-michael-fingleton-concludes-at-high-court-6847658-Oct2025\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">estimated losses worth \u20ac6 billion<\/a> but sought only \u20ac250 million in damages relating to five loans made by the building society that were allegedly approved by Fingleton.<\/p>\n<p>The five loans related to property development projects in Ireland, France and the UK between 2006 and 2008.<\/p>\n<p>During the trial, Barrister Lyndon MacCann for IBRC said the claim against Fingleton was for damages for alleged \u201cprofound mismanagement\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>MacCann said it was IBRC\u2019s case that Irish Nationwide operated on a speculation that property could only \u201cgo up, and up, and up, and up\u201d. He set out that a \u201cblas\u00e9\u201d attitude had been taken to warning letters from auditors and the financial regulator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORMER HEAD OF the Irish Nationwide Building Society Michael Fingleton has died at the age of 88. Fingleton&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,19,17,261390,78052,78051],"class_list":["post-619046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-nationwide","tag-irish-nationwide-building-society","tag-michael-fingleton"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117034479090228308","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}