Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 11 February 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Context Phase

Professor John FitzGerald:

I do not know, but I think by the end of 2006 early 2007 I would have said there was a 50% probability of a collapse in the housing market with consequences. From what we know now, once one had a - perhaps - collapse then in the property market, one was going to have a banking problem. It would have been substantially smaller. The earlier the bust happened, the better from our point of view. It is a judgment; I have not done research on this. My feeling is that sometime around then it became irreversible and the costs were going to be very significant with the benefit of hindsight.