Susan O'Keeffe (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Thank you, Chair. Mr. Walsh, on page 9 of your own statement, the witness statement, you list a number of reasons which you believe were the "difficulties which the Society subsequently encountered and the associated losses arose from a combination of factors" and you list those factors - a bubble of cheap credit, hyper-competition, markets freezing, inability to refinance, the property bubble bursting, excess pressure and a concentration of risk in the commercial property sector. And that's where you say, "because the Society loaned funds to a relatively small number of borrowers many of whom were in the commercial property sector the Society was badly affected by the impact of the factors listed above". I'm ... forgive me for being puzzled or surprised that in that list you don't include, if you like, any of the activities at the building society itself, that if you like, you are largely saying that it was external factors that contributed to your problems. I would draw attention in that fact to the Central Bank's own report of 2015, which as you know, investigated the building society between August 2004 and 2008, INBS has admitted multiple failings at several levels of its commercial lending process from operational lending to credit review, its credit provisions and audit committees, all the way to its board of directors. INBS's admitted failings amount to a consistent and at times wholesale disregard for its own policies and procedures. So I'm wondering, Mr. Walsh, why in your list of reasons do you not list, if you like, your ... the failings of INBS along with those other matters?