Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 7 May 2015
Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis
Nexus Phase
Mr. Pat McArdle:
Sorry, Chairman, I was in my bubble, right. So, yes there was a riot on the pitch, I would say, yes. I mean, looking back, there was a frenzy of competition. I mean, we had ... in my view, anyway, we had excessive competition in Ireland. Too much of anything is bad for you and we had probably ... arguably, excessive competition. When you look at all that transpired, when you look at the competition that came from Anglo, when you look at the foreign banks, when you look at the attitude of the regulator who encouraged it, had a whole division in the ... IFSRA ... the regulator, you know, really, effectively sponsoring competition. So, I think we went wrong there and there was too much freedom to the banks, the model didn't work and the only ... well, sorry, to come back to the question, I can see your scepticism, but the only one who could have stopped it was the regulator.
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