Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 30 April 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Brian Goggin:

Well, you know, I recognised, you know, pretty early on, that the options, or mechanisms, that the authorities had, were very limited. You know, I knew that we didn't have resolution legislation in place.

I wasn't sure if one could put a bank into examinership or receivership. I had no previous knowledge or history of a bank being dealt with in that manner, so nationalisation seemed like the only possible option. But look, to be quite blunt about this, you don't nationalise a significant bank in a working week. If you have to nationalise a bank because there's a crisis, you do so at a weekend. So, you know, here we are, we went down for a meeting at 9.30 p.m., we were called in about 11.30 p.m. By the time we were discussing the matters you're now asking me about, it was past midnight.