Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 7 November 2012
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform
Statement of Strategy 2011-2014: Discussion with Department of Finance
2:55 pm
Mr. John A. Moran:
The Deputy has identified the right issues. The banks needs to deal first with the cost of funds. They are already making significant progress in terms of deposit-grade interest. Once their largest cost - that is, their interest cost - starts going down, they can focus on reducing overhead costs in terms of staffing, branches and so on. They must then deal with the asset side, which includes, as I have mentioned, dealing with some of the loans that simply cannot be repaid.