Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 16 July 2015
Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis
Nexus Phase
Mr. Pádraig Ó Ríordáin:
Well I think, Senator, the probably the easiest way ... or sorry, sorry, Deputy, excuse me ... the easiest way to look at that is actually when Anglo was nationalised in 15 January 2009 and that was done overnight. So in terms of ... of nationalising a bank it's very important always to make sure that you retain confidence and certainty in the sector generally speaking. So you would tend to pass the legislation that was there on the night of the guarantee and was there that week, and ultimately, a version of that was enacted in January 2009. So essentially what you do is you ... you remove the ... you go in, you take the shares, so the shares transfer from the shareholders to the State. You then change the board, which means that ... that there's new controls in relation to it and you just take ownership of the bank.