Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Earlier we heard from Mr. Walsh, the then chairman ... and following a KPMG report recommending that a series of improvements needed to be made such as on the whole area of corporate governance and there were a number of them including the independence ... to assure the independence of directors and to ensure that the board in terms of reference and so on and we put it to him that, “Why had you not, as chairman, introduced these things much earlier?” I think we were talking about a period now of 2008, if I recall correctly. He used words like, “Well, you know, corporate governances can be somewhat of a box ticking exercise and so on.” Can I ask, in your time on the board ... I mean, you know, those recommendations by KPMG at the time, you know, would hardly have been pioneering new ground in terms of the expectations of how corporate governance would be taken, or how serious it would be taken by a company with a balance sheet so large. Did you have a sense at the time that, look, this whole thing is loose; I mean-----