DATALEX chairman Paschal Taggart has resigned as chairman and as a director with immediate effect.

Mr Taggart had previously indicated he’d stand down at the company’s annual general meeting (AGM), but that has been delayed as the company grapples with a raft of issues including an ongoing suspension of share trading.

His departure follows that of Datalex CEO Aidan Brogan, who resigned with immediate effect at the beginning of May.

Sean Corkery, deputy chairman, has taken up responsibility as acting CEO.

At the start of May, the Irish travel software company temporarily suspend the trading of its shares, and they remain suspended pending publication of financial accounts that were due by April 30 but are being revised as the company carries out a review of its financial year 2018 following what it previously said were “significant accounting irregularities”.

In April, when he announced his plan to stand down, Mr Taggart said he would like to have done a “far better job” at the troubled com­pany and apologised on behalf of the travel software company to staff, as well as shareholders who’ve been left nursing paper losses after shares collapsed on the back of accounting irreg­ularities.

“I’d like to be going in dif­ferent circumstances,” he told shareholders at an extraor­dinary general meeting to approve a €6.1m loan to the group from billionaire finan­cier Dermot Desmond, who owns almost 30pc of the firm.

“I would like to have done a far better job,” he added.

Mr Taggart, has been a director at Datalex for 17 years and chairman for nine. He owns almost 3pc of the group.

“Somebody’s got to fall on their sword in these situa­tions… I have no problem with that,” he said after the April meeting. He said he had been planning his departure for some time.

“I was always going. I think it’s a good time to go,” he said.

A review by PwC found that there had been “significant accounting irreg­ularities” at Datalex, which has said its first half results for 2018 may have been misstated.

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