Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 8 July 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Brian Cowen:

Sorry, I said the PwC report came back in November. I mean, the view ... the view right up to September was that Irish banks were well capitalised and that if there ... and that there was a sufficient buffer that if there were some increased impairments coming down the line, that they would have enough money. Now, that was a mistaken analysis but that was the analysis we had and we had to go with the analysis that was in front of us at the time, the information that was available to us at the time and, you know, things developed ... worst-case scenarios, even stress testing that was being done - and there was stress testing being done by the Central bank and the Financial Regulator - wasn't envisaging the worst-case scenario that we ended up with, and I don't think anyone was.