Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 16 July 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Bertie Ahern:

Well, I don't ... in that sense, you're, you're trying to put "lightly regulated" as something that's bad. The whole ... I'll tell you, Deputy, I remember as Minister of Finance, when the Bundesbank finance committee came to this country because this country's financial services centre, which was only in its infancy, was being talked down by others, mainly Luxembourg, which ... I don't criticise them for it because they saw this was a new opposition. And they came here and were amazed to find out that it wasn't a brass plate operation, that we had good regulation, that we were well-regulated. And one of the reasons that the financial services industry in this country has been a success, that it has billions upon billions under fund management and that has been one of the great success stories of the last quarter of a century in this country is because it's seen internationally as a well-regulated, not light regulated, well-----