Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 17 December 2014

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Context Phase

3:10 am

Mr. Peter Nyberg:

I would imagine that if one looked at Iceland, one would probably see things like that. What the Deputy is asking indirectly is why did nobody stop this. That is one of the big conundrums of this issue. It is not only about the regulator. If the media or a committee of the Parliament had indicated that this seemed too hot and had to stop, it would have stopped. If one of the risk-mitigating institutions had seen what we see now, there would have been no systemic crisis.

The Deputy is asking "Why is this?". I tried to explain it by saying that everybody was following everybody else. That is groupthink and herding. With regard to why they do that, it is-----