Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In Professor Walsh's opening statement - the published statement, as opposed to the briefer one - he referred to the work of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in documenting the life cycle of a bank failure in 1997. Rather than quote every word, it spoke about rapid loan growth, concentrations emerging, aggressive lending and so on, as it stated and the record would show. In Professor Walsh's view, were such features understood adequately by the Irish authorities, including the Central Bank and the regulator, during the pre-crisis period?