Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 6 May 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Cormac McCarthy:

I think Deputy, with hindsight, that is what happened and it is what we got wrong. We lent too much to the property sector and were overexposed. At the time, in the context of what I said at the outset, we believed that we would be taking market share so that growing from a lower base, one could grow by a greater percentage because one would be taking market share. Therefore, we were comforted by that to a degree, in terms of why would we grow more than the market, and the second point was our incorrect assumption about continued economic growth. The backdrop to what we were doing was, No. 1, we can grow by more than the other guys because we are smaller and can take market share. It didn't transpire that way. Secondly, all of the economic indicators to the backdrop of what we were doing were extremely positive.

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