Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 18 June 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Kevin Cardiff:

Well, for very specific reasons. It was considered earlier in the year. It was considered that it couldn't be ... that something like that couldn't be assembled in the kind of timeframe that we might be talking about, a few months. And it was considered also there ... do you remember, that there were really significant legal difficulties that might not be capable of being overcome, because remember, what is a resolution mechanism? The core of what you and I are talking about is: you take control of the institution, you manage it out, you share the burden of the losses. Now, how is that different from nationalisation? In a nationalisation, you take control of the institution, you manage it out and you consider what's to be done with sharing the burden of the losses. But the reason, even in January 2009 when we did nationalise Anglo, we started thinking, as we would have done had we nationalised it September, how do we share the burden of the losses? And at that point even, even with the knowledge that things had moved on and that things were looking worse than they were in September, even at that point there were significant legal obstacles to a little plan we had to force a few losses onto the subordinated bondholders-----

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