Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 10 September 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Ajai Chopra:

Okay. I think I've already talked about the flaw. I've given you a specific example of where IMF surveillance fell short when I talked about the mixed message from the 2006 financial sector assessment, right? So I think the IMF has acknowledged that. Now, is there a political dimension to that? Because, you know, you've got to understand that we come here, we talk to a range of people, including the country authorities, and if we're hearing from the country authorities that "Yes, there are these risks but, you know, we're managing them", that did have ... that does and did have an impact. I do think, having learned from its previous mistakes, IMF staff have become much more questioning. There's no ... In the past, OECD reports, I know, were somewhat negotiated documents. IMF reports are not. I mean, if there's a change to an IMF report before its publication, there are very strict criteria. They have to be factual errors or something has to be market-sensitive or there has to be some evident ambiguity. So those reports were not watered down from that ... from that side, but what one was hearing from the Irish side naturally had an impact. I mean, there was groupthink - something identified in the Honohan and in the Nyberg reports. The IMF got captured in that groupthink.

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