Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 10 June 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Cyril Roux:

Well, I think we, you know ... you know, from 2010-11 there have been so many exercises ... on Irish banks.

You know, the work done with the assistance of BlackRock and then the PCAR and PLAR and then the balance sheet assessment meant that, when I arrived, we knew the banks very well. And a recognition of that is that when, in 2014, through the comprehensive assessment that I referred to in my speech ... there was the asset quality review of the comprehensive assessment and we were able to convince the ECB that we could reuse the balance sheet assessment of 2013 because it was so comprehensive, it was so challenging and there was a lot of quality assurance built in ... we have a very detailed work, that we convinced them that we could reuse this. So I think, when I arrived, we knew very well the Irish banks. And I think, it's a credit to the team, it's a credit to financial regulation but also to Governor Honohan and the rest of the bank, because the quality assurance was given on this by the financial stability division in the central banking part of the bank. You know, loan loss forecast ... I think there was a lot of work done on the banks since the beginning of the decade and our knowledge of the banks are ... is really very good.