Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Eugene Sheehy:

But anyway, the group large exposure policy ... clearly there was a stratification of risk and levels, and it was built on a principle of the loan originator and the loan sanctioner being separated. So what the escalation of sanctioning - if you go through the various committees - meant was that in each case, first of all, you were going through the committee process because the loans were getting larger, and that's a fact. And, you know, we talked about a big loan earlier on. But to me there was a benefit of ... in this process, which was you got fresh eyes at each level, and feedback and interaction. So the group large exposure policy, and the passing on of when people went over certain limits into their next level was, I think, is a positive process in looking at risk. It's a positive process. It can look, because the loans are bigger, as just some kind of a default thing that as it gets bigger it just goes up and gets approved. That's not the case. As it goes up, it gets further and further interrogated before it's approved.