A court has heard former Anglo Irish Bank Chairman Sean FitzPatrick looked surprised to hear the bank had only a 25% security on the Maple Ten loans.

Mr FitzPatrick's successor, Donal O'Connor, who joined Anglo as a non-executive director in June 2008, has been giving evidence at the trial of three former executives at the bank.

Mr FitzPatrick (65) and former Anglo directors Willie McAteer (63) and Pat Whelan (51) deny providing unlawful financial assistance to the Maple investors and members of Sean Quinn's family to buy the bank's shares in July 2008.

Mr O'Connor has told the jury he received a phone call from Mr FitzPatrick around July 9th 2008 informing him about the so-called Maple Ten loans.

'Good news'

In a statement to gardai, he said Mr FitzPatrick had told him there was 'good news' before explaining that a portion of businessman Sean Quinn's 29% stake in the bank had been placed with wealthy individuals.

The jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court has already heard evidence from several property developers who were part of the Maple Ten group.

They were Anglo customers who were issued with loans of around 45 million euro to buy a 1% stake in the bank in July 2008.

The transaction was part of a plan to unwind the interest the then billionaire Sean Quinn had secretly built up in Anglo by betting on the stock using a financial instrument called Contracts for Difference.

Mr O'Connor said he believed the Chairman described the loans as being 'full recourse' which would have meant that the borrowers could be held personally liable for the entire loan, if the share price collapsed.

'Baptism of fire'

Several weeks later at a dinner for the board in August, he said he thought Mr FitzPatrick looked surprised to hear from the bank's Chief Executive David Drumm that the recourse was 25%.

Under cross examination by Brendan Grehan SC, representing Pat Whelan, Mr O'Connor agreed that joining Anglo in 2008 had been a 'baptism of fire' with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the United State and the bank guarantee of September 30.

Earlier Judge Martin Nolan ruled that the issue of whether Anglo had received legal advice in relation to the loans is irrelevant to the guilt or innocence of the three accused men.

He told the jury the ruling applies to any past reference to legal advice and that there should be no further questioning of any witnesses on this issue.