Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 13 May 2015
Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis
Nexus Phase
Mr. Patrick Davitt:
Well, the potential conflict of interest is in the code of conduct, and there is a potential conflict of interest in what you're speaking about, but, at the same time, like, that's the normal practice that was done and that's the way ... that's the way things were done until now ... well, probably until 2012, I'd say, until the Central Bank examined the banks and they came up with different proposals as what should happen. But valuers would be very happy with this and would have looked for this on lots of different occasions because if you go to value something for somebody and they're not happy with the valuation and you're in a small area or even you're in a big area, it's not a great situation to be in, because they will obviously want bigger values and the valuer doesn't do it, so, like, you've very little choice as to what you're going to do. You've to say to them, "Look it, I can't do that, I'm sorry. You may ask somebody else or do something different or whatever you want, but I can only do a valuation for you to this value."