Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 2 July 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Brian Cowen:

Yes, that did surprise me. I mean, it is an internal management issue. The total number working in those two organisations as you know is quite substantial and one would expect that front-line prudential staff would number greater than what we heard was the case.

But I would make the point that, you know, were it the case that they were dependent on public allocation of money to do their job, I would listen to a criticism more ... better, but I think they have, since they were elected, since they were set up, there's a 50% contribution from the balances of the Central Bank and a 50% - approximately - contribution from the industry itself, and I know there might have been a small bit of time to set that up. But there's no reason whatever that there should be a stretching of staff in terms of dealing with these big institutions if that was the case. I think that needed to be ... and the fact that it might have been like that, sort of, might have set a tone with the financial institutions themselves, that they were being relied upon to give accurate information and that they were almost doing a regulatory job within the bank, which would never be the case; commercial considerations will always win out, as you know. So, the fiduciary relationship is to the shareholder in that case, rather than the wider consideration.

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