Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 15 July 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Photo of Kieran O'DonnellKieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Thank you, Chairman. Welcome, Mr. Farrell. Mr. Farrell ... this is reference, Chairman, to Mr. Farrell's book of evidence, page 27. You might put that up on the screen, please. And it relates to the Regling and Watson report and more particularly it relates around that the Regling and Watson, that:

[The] setting of macro-economic ease in growing financial integration, bank managements in Ireland faced new major opportunities. However this environment also entailed challenges for [banks, particularly around the area of] governance.

And Regling and Watson report goes on to say that the challenges weren't met by the banks and "Errors of judgement in bank management and governance contributed centrally to Ireland's financial crisis." The questions for Mr. Farrell are: was the Irish Banking Federation aware of these challenges its members faced? And if not, did they feel that the IBF was fulfilling its mandate and was representing the sector's interests accurately? And before you departed from the IBF in June 2013, what had you put in place to ensure that the IBF could accurately represent the sector's interests and ensure banks met future challenges regarding banks' governance? So it's really around the whole area of the day-to-day governance and the challenges that brought.