Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 6 May 2015
Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis
Nexus Phase
John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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Can I turn now to core document B2, page 3 it's a document that's entitled Annual Review of Credit .. or Annual Review of Mortgage Lending Group Credit Perspective. It was produced in December 2004, around the time I think your position changed and you became a member of a credit committee of the bank. There's a quote under the graphs which says, "Mortgage lending has increased from €21.4 bn in 1999 to €38.6 bn in 2004 [a virtual doubling], €19 bn of which has been written in the last 18 months." Can I ask how can you justify now or was there justification at the time for such a massive increase in concentration in lending in that particular sector?