Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 10 September 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Ajai Chopra:

I think one needs to put a sense of proportion on this point. Equity holders did bear significant losses, right? So bank equity was essentially wiped out and banks had to be nationalised. Sub-debt holders also suffered losses as they should have, as it was a risk-bearing debt. There's a small proportion of debt, at that point, that did not bear losses. In its quantitative magnitude, as I said, it looked pretty much the same as the amount of fiscal adjustment that had to be made, which made it very visible. So, in a given year, you know, if you're doing €3 billion or €4 billion of new fiscal measures and you're paying out €3 billion or €4 billion to the creditors, that complicates matters and deepens that sense of unfairness. And that was the situation that Ireland faced. But, you know, so that's serious, that's important, but it should not take away from the fact that equity holders and sub-debt holders did bear losses.

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