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

Can I suggest Mr. Walsh, or ask you why you wouldn't be aware - theoretically but also from practical experience of history - of the dangers here? For example, Professor Honohan, the former Governor of the Central Bank, in an article in the Economic and Social Review, summer 2009 says as follows, "A very simple warning sign used by most regulators to identify a bank exposed to increased risk is rapid balance sheet growth; that an annual real growth rate of 20% is taken as the trigger." And he goes on to say that in the case of INBS, Irish Nationwide crossed the line six out of nine years for an average rate of growth over the nine years of just over 20%. And are you aware of Professor Black who gave evidence to this committee? And I might assume, or you can tell us, that you might have been aware of the crisis in the savings and loans situation in the United States. Now, in view of that experience, Mr. Walsh, if you were aware of it as an academic, why were you not able to see that alarm bells should have been flashing in your head above anybody else in this period when this exponential growth was happening?