Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 28 January 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Context Phase

Professor Edward Kane:

There are two ways of doing it. If there is great economic value in being big, one would have to say that it is wasteful to break them up. However, if the only value in being as big as they have become is a better ability to exploit the taxpayer, then breaking them up is a good solution. My approach would finesse the problem because if one establishes duties to taxpayers, one will not see the same kind of behaviour. It would not be rewarded or even regarded as clever. It would be perceived as criminal behaviour.