Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Eugene Sheehy:

I wouldn't know the detail of it but if the question is about, you know, was the regulatory structure appropriate which ... I mean we had dealings, and I had dealings, with the FR from the time. I had some dealings with them before I left to go to the US, I had a lot of dealings with them when I came back. At the time, certainly from mid-2005 on, the focus was on consumer-related issues, as a knock-on I think from the issues that Deputy O'Donnell raised - you know, the governance issues. So there was a big focus on that, and then it was immediately kind of replaced by the three big programmes: SOX, Basel and IFRS, which totally consumed the regulator's energy and our energy, certainly through 2006 and most of 2007. So it was a ... I think the regulator at that time was taxed with a huge amount of oversight in what was happening in the market.