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

Yes, and I want to put to you some of Mr. Black's evidence. He says there is a recipe which banks follow "which produces the worst losses, is most likely to cause hyperinflated bubbles [...] to cause catastrophic individual losses and future crises" and the recipe he says is a bank that grows like crazy, make terrible-quality loans, employ extreme leverage while setting aside no meaningful loss reserves for the inevitable catastrophic losses. And he says three sure things that arise as a result if these ingredients are followed, there will be record profits; under modern executive compensation, the senior leadership will promptly be made wealthy; there will be catastrophic losses. My first question, Mr. McGann, is: would you say is that a fair summation of what happened within Anglo Irish Bank and its effect on the nation? And, secondly, Mr. Black has been saying this since the late '80s, early '90s. Again, given your experience, could you not have foreseen that booms always give way to busts?