Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

-----to him because its all of the same theme, Chairman. Mary Burke from the Central Bank gave evidence here, "believing that the authorities did not want a stricter regulation regime for Irish banks because the IFSC could then be seen as an area with less regulation that might be compared to an offshore financial haven". And, Mr. Patterson, you make almost precisely the same point in page ... oh dear, its all my stuff here ...in page 6 and 7 of your written statement, when you say "It was [...] felt that foreign and domestic banks had to be treated the same - in order to avoid giving substance to any impression that Ireland was host to an off-shore centre that was being treated more lightly than its domestic banks." Is this the secret of the riddle? That there was an international deregulation of the financial services, massive competition and that this ... did this then result in a race to the bottom that was reflected in this policy that was adopted by the regulator?