Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

We will have to agree to disagree, because I think this is dangerous. I shall give a further example to press the point. Credit unions, very sensibly, do not lend out money that they do not have, because they know it is a dangerous practice. We have recognised the need to increase core tier 1 capital in banks because the levels were dangerous. They were lending out way too much money as against what they had in capital. There should be loan-to-deposit ratios which do not become dangerously out of step with one another. We should recognise the need to move in that direction. I worry that Mr. Carrigan is essentially saying that the buffer, which seems very similar to having proper capital reserves or proper loan-to-deposit ratios, is not possible. That buffer is a step towards saying that we should not lend out large amounts of money which we do not really have.