Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 15 July 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Pat Farrell:

Well, a lot of - and I referred to it in my statement - I think, a lot of the foreign banks who had established a retail presence in Ireland had at that stage exited, or were in the course of exit. Exact number, I suppose, in essence we were probably down to the indigenous banks, and, in the IFSC, there was some retrenchment as well, because what happened internationally was that as all banks came under pressure, there was a political desire ... I'm sorry there was political momentum and there was momentum within the banks themselves to retrench to their home markets. In other words, let's stick to the knitting, let's look after the core markets and the customers of those core markets, which meant that a lot of subsidiary activity, IFSC, tended to run down or be closed. I would say, and I think it's important to say it, like, the IFSC is not an abstract, kind of, concept. As we speak, like, the IFSC employs about 35,000 people, generates about €2 billion in corporate and payroll taxes, and, just by way of putting that in context, it's the equivalent of the vote for 2015 for the Department of Agriculture, Marine and Food, and for the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. So it is a substantial contributor to the Irish economy.

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