The annual report of Anglo Irish, released last Friday, sheds further light on the three transactions that have attracted extensive attention in the past few weeks.

To get a sense of the scale involved, try using executive jets as your currency.

The transactions entailed loans to a former chairman which would have bought someone two jets; loans advanced to 10 individuals to buy shares would have bought 10 jets; and a transaction with Irish Life and Permanent would have purchased a buyer an astonishing 175 jets.

All three transactions were not apparent in the preliminary announcement of results on 3 December. This failure to candidly disclose information is worrying. More worrying is all three transactions were facilitated by parties external to Anglo Irish. This external collusion has created an international concern that crony capitalism may be alive and well in Ireland.

Many commentators were disappointed the annual report contained no salacious detail. However, the annual report does reveal the scale of the problems that Anglo faced on 30 September. It also reveals the absence of candour at the results presentation in December.

In terms of problems, Anglo Irish probably experienced a significant decline in non-retail deposits between March and September 2008.

I estimate that the average deposit size fell from €4m to €2.5m. This evidence is consistent with smart depositors deserting the bank. The IL&P transactions served to conceal the magnitude of the problem. In a display of considerable chutzpah, the bank informed investors in December that it was proud of its 'granular' and 'diverse' funding base. Receiving 23% of non-retail deposits in advance of the year end from Irish Life and Permanent in a round-trip transaction constitutes neither granularity nor diversity.

The transaction achieved three outcomes for Anglo. First, it obscured a 30% decline in its non-retail deposits. Non-retail deposits decreased by €10bn between March and September 2008. In contrast, the former CEO David Drumm reported to shareholders that customer deposits had increased by 4% on a constant currency basis. Second, it allowed the former CEO to report that a key measure of bank liquidity (the loan to deposit ratio) stood at 140%. This served to mask a deterioration in this ratio from 121% in 2007 to 162% in 2008.

Undoubtedly, there is likely to be significant interest in the personal aspects of the Anglo saga. From a national perspective, calls for tribunals and investigations will simply reallocate scarce resources from the public sector to the legal profession. A more important concern is the impact that the stigma of crony capitalism will have on the costs of borrowing for government, companies and individuals in Ireland. If one is to dispel accusations of crony capitalism, immediate action is necessary to deal with the broader fallout from these events. One could forgive an air-traffic controller that failed to notice two executive jets but 175 jets is less likely to be forgiven.

Clear signals to the international community are necessary to dispel the fears that Anglo Irish did not act alone to conceal the true extent of the difficulties that it faced on 30 September, 2008.

Eamonn J Walsh is a professor of accounting at UCD Smurfit School of Business