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

Yes, I just want to deal with one question, Mr. Cowen, because of time, and it relates to, again, the question of resources in the financial regulation area in your time. Now, you said in point 27 of your written statement "The Central Bank and the Financial Regulator's office had significant resources in dealing with the supervision and regulation of the lending institutions." If I could look very briefly just at the evidence from Mary Burke, who was head of banking supervision in the Central Bank 2006-2008, and it's page 5 of her written statement and in the bottom ... I'll draw your attention to the last paragraph, Mr. Cowen, but in the page before, which there's not a need to go to, she does refer to only three ... only a three-person team supervising the Bank of Ireland and Anglo Irish Bank and another three persons, Allied Irish Bank and IL and P, and then at the bottom of page 5, she says "While an additional complement"... no, sorry, the second last paragraph first, "The level of resources and the associated level of available specialist expertise was not such as to be capable of delivering intrusive supervision - even in a 'business as usual' mode of operation." She goes on to say that then how more difficult things became, and then in the last paragraph:

While an additional complement of three staff was agreed in 2007, my request for additional staff in May 2008 in the face of the financial crisis and the demands being placed on the Department was effectively refused. In the context of manpower planning, I requested an increase of six staff in order to establish dedicated two-person teams for each of AIB, BoI, IL and P and Anglo. I was clear in supporting documentation that I did not view this as an adequate number, but - conscious that Mazars were then conducting an organisational review, including a review of resources – I positioned this as an interim request.

And, just for time, basically:

...the outcome was an increase of only 0.4 persons ... A subsequent oral request that staff who had previously worked in [banking supervision division] be reassigned to the department was also rejected.

Were you aware that this was going on, Mr. Cowen? Were you familiar with the feeling of leading people in the regulator's office that there wasn't sufficient staff? Was it brought to your attention by Mr. Brian Patterson, the chair of the Financial Regulator, and did you take any action in relation to this issue?