Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Michael Buckley:

-----talk about my time in respect of that. I'll be very brief. The point I would make, I've made it in my opening statement, which is that in the period that I'm talking about, up to this time, 2005, you know, we were in - we, as in the economy - was in a big, big catch-up phase. I mean, you can't ignore the fact ... sorry, one can't ignore the fact that the population did increase by a million over that period of '71 to 2001; that the labour force had increased by 32%; that the employed population had increased by 49%. I mean, people had to be housed, they had to go shopping. They were moving into urban areas from the country on a continuous basis, so I think the Irish economic situation was a bit different to, if you like, the model that ... I haven't read his testimony, but-----