Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 10 March 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Context Phase

Mr. Simon Carswell:

To address the first part of that question, I was certainly concerned, although concern is the wrong word to use. I was surprised at the pace at which the crisis was developing, how quickly it happened. I did not necessarily jump to what access do people have at this time. We were following it as a day-to-day crisis, it was panic stations for a lot of these financial institutions in the second half of 2008. We now know that Anglo was €0.5 billion a day, up to €1 billion a day. The money was draining out of the bank. There were daily meetings in the banks and daily reporting of just how bad it was to the Central Bank and Financial Regulator.