Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 27 May 2015
Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis
Nexus Phase
Ms Mary Burke:
Okay, I can't speak to the one in February '06 because that was issued by the director general, Liam Barron, and I assume the replies would have been to him. The Central Bank, rather than the regulator was dealing with the system-wide stress test, so I presume there were replies but I just can't speak to them. In terms of the February '07 letter, which was our policy review of sectoral concentration limits, my understanding is there were replies received by us. I think something like nine banks replied. I haven't gone to check whether that was a reply to every single ... from every single bank. When you come to page 57, that is a letter from me, it's a standard letter. It would have issued to all mortgage lending institutions, and yes, I appreciate it refers to stress testing in there but that should not be confused with the system-wide stress test that I referred to earlier that was run by the Central Bank. This was guidance that we had in place where we expected banks to ... it was in the context of the affordability of a mortgage that a customer might take on, so every mortgage should have been stress test and the applicant assessed as to whether or not they could handle a 2% increase in the interest rate. So again, those are three separate issues and in the context of that letter on page 57, I would have expected no more than a reply to say yes, they were aware of it and they would comply.
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