Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 1 July 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Ms Ann Nolan:

It's very difficult to ... I mean, I suppose the problem with the banking system is that it needed to downsize very significantly and that downsizing, no matter what you do, takes time. If you look at the trajectory, you know, it was €400 million loans outstanding in '08 across the six institutions; and, 2010, there was €280 billion loans outstanding; and now it's down to, oh, about €172 billion and we're now at a loan-to-deposit ratio of about 112%. So we're probably around a sustainable level now across the three banks that are left. But that downsizing, could it have been done quicker? It might have cost the State a lot more if we did it quicker is the real problem because there's always a trade-off. If you sell everything very quickly, you get a less good price, so, you know, it isn't a given that doing it quicker would have things better. It might have made things worse.

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