Professor Patrick Honohan:

It is my view. Sometimes in discussions with people they might ask if I am entitled to have that view and if it is not just my personal view of the ethics of banking. I do not think banking and finance can work without a high ethical standard, a standard that tells top bankers that they have a heavy responsibility here, that this is not money they are being given to gamble with but money they are being given which forms the basis of a huge underpinning of the economy of society. Regarding developers, they probably think that the bank did give them money to gamble with - it is a different environment. I think there is a heavy responsibility, but perhaps it is more an ethical than a legal concept.

One thing should be said. This inquiry will be looking into those dimensions of the banks, and to some extent Peter Nyberg looked at that as well. I am often puzzled over something. We all know that senior bankers, and I am referring not just to Anglo Irish Bank, were very well regarded. There were clever, able, serious, solid and honest people of integrity. How could they have got into this situation? The conjecture I am left with, and which the inquiry might wish to explore, is that in the back of their minds they might think, "Gosh, this could all go wrong, but if it all goes wrong there will be a rescue, it will not be that bad because a floor will be provided and the State or Europe will step in - something will be done and it will be all right". Even though they might have accepted subliminally that there were risks, they brushed those aside. Of course, this gives the situation, and this is not the way they would have put it or even thought of it, of heads I win, tails you lose. That could explain why serious people said, "We are making a lot of money here, we are distributing it to shareholders and we are generating the economy. Yes, we are taking risks, but if the worst comes to the worst it will not be too bad for us."