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

But there were more overall facts as well, Mr. Considine, particularly with relation to the rapid growth in the banks. Can I quote to you from the then Governor, or at a later time Governor of the Central Bank, Patrick Honohan, in the report that he did into the banking crisis, page 217:

A very simple warning sign used by most regulators to identify a bank exposed to increased risk is rapid balance sheet growth. An annual real growth rate of 20 per cent is often taken as the trigger. ... So this was a very obvious and public danger sign not only for these two banks, but because of the potentially destabilising effect of reckless competition on the entire sector.

Now at previous hearings, Mr. Considine, we don't need to rehearse it again tonight, but we showed the figures, in the time that you were on the Central Bank board, for Anglo Irish Banks, for Allied Irish Bank and for Bank of Ireland, of astonishing rates of lending, astonishing rates, and astonishing increases in profits. And we had evidence from Mr. Bill Black, a famed US former regulator and bank expert, that growth of this type means that the alarm bells should be ringing for regulators, for people like yourselves who are supervising the whole system. Why weren't there alarm bells ringing in your head and in the board at that time?