Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 17 June 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Tom Considine:

Absolutely. No, we weren't successful in ... we weren't successful in either ... most of the time, apart from 2003 and 2004, you know, we weren't successful most of the time in making our advice stick. Now, people have said if we had presented it differently or whatever and look, I'm not going to argue with that. You can always present things differently. But to be quite honest, and I'm sure you want the facts here, it's a political system. We are operating in a political system. I have worked in commercial operations; they're totally different. You know, this is a political system and, you know, advisers are there to advise, politicians are there to make decisions and that's where it ends up. Now you can always criticise us for saying if we had provided the advice, if we had shouted louder or something, but you know, you can't ignore the fact that that's how it works.