Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 22 July 2015
Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis
Nexus Phase
Mr. Fergus Murphy:
Okay. So there ... Senator, there were a number of regional offices where commercial property would have been lent from. Now, again, in fairness to the society, before my time they ... underwriting would have been centralised and the approval of property would have been a centralised function, centralised credit committee, etc. However, there would have been origination in relationship management teams regionally. So the point I'm making there is that I'm closing down those regional teams, okay. That was done in March 2008 and then in June or early July 2008, I'm closing down commercial property completely in terms of saying, "We're not doing any more". Therefore, the commercial property origination in relationship management teams clearly weren't needed regionally anymore and the one that was there in Dublin, which covered Dublin and surrounding counties, etc. and some of the larger ticket business, almost overnight became an asset recovery unit and an asset management unit because the focus again was control, was minimised risk, was "How do we get our money back?" and that meant a bespoke strategy from each large commercial property transaction and that's what I'm talking to in that, Senator.
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