Mr. Simon Carswell:

I think it is safe to say they did not learn. If one looks at the culture within Irish banking over the period of the scandals the Deputy mentioned from the first book, I believe there was a switch in the 1980s to performance related pay and that that is really what drove this activity by the banks - the desire to maximise earnings. It was always about beating the previous year's profits and bankers being set higher targets to meet goals, not just by their own institutions but also by the market. They wanted to see the share price go in one particular way. That should have alerted either the regulatory authorities or government authorities to understand what was going on in banking at the time and to take more aggressive action.

Senator Sean D. Barrett asked how the nature of the regulatory regime had changed in 2003. The focus was on protecting the consumer, not prudential standards in the banking sector.