Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 17 June 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Photo of Michael D'ArcyMichael D'Arcy (Fine Gael)
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We'll move on then to the FSR reports and during your period there was an ... Deputy Higgins discussed the growth of the balance sheets. But the growth in personal indebtedness went from 71% in 1995 to ... of GDP to 248% projected in the final 2007 FSR report. The vast majority of that happened on your watch, from '02 to '06, where they passed the European average and then went from the European average to the most indebted citizens in Europe. Can I ask your explanation how that was allowed go unchecked, with you, as the most senior, or certainly one of the most senior, civil servants in the State, in the crucial Department in question?