Finance minister Brian Lenihan and his senior aides have met more than 20 foreign financial institutions since the start of the year as the financial crisis continues. Amongst the institutions were BNP Paribas, with which multiple meetings were held, and US-bank Wells Fargo.

Representatives from the Bank of Montreal, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Citibank and others were also due to meet the minister earlier this year.

Documents seen by the Sunday Tribune show Rick Lazio, JP Morgan Chase's executive vice president of global government affairs and public policy, was due to meet Lenihan on 24 April. The former Long Island congressman was beaten by Hillary Clinton in the race for the Senate in 2000 and is the sole declared Republican candidate for the New York governor election in 2010.

Department of Finance sources refused to elaborate on the nature of the meetings.

The minister's diary includes a planned meeting with Ruthger Schellens, Rabobank's European region head, and Rob Hartog who heads the bank's Irish operations. He also was due to meet Jean Lemierre, a former president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, who is now a senior adviser to the chairman of BNP. Laurence Gordan, who is head of BNP's banking and asset-management division, also met a senior aide of Lenihan in March.

Kevin Cardiff, the second secretary general at the department, was due to twice meet Irishman Tadhg Flood, Deutsche Bank's European financial institutions team co-head, who also advised the British government on the bail out of its banks. Others due to meet Cardiff earlier this year were William Chalmers, the head of European banks at Morgan Stanley.

Others to meet with the minister and his aides were Rothschild, which is advising the government on restricting the banks, as well as Lazards, Fidelity, HSBC and KBC.