Results 6,281-6,300 of 27,019 for speaker:Michael Noonan

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: Yes, it won’t be fully in place for eight years and I'd have a ... I think it should have been done sooner, you know, because it goes in in instalments. The actual fund is €55 billion. And, on the cascade, you run down through shareholders, junior bondholders, senior bondholders of different categories, corporate depositors, personal depositors of over €100,000. If you...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: No, I don't think so. I mean, the reason ... the proximate reason that the State went into a bailout was we couldn’t get money on the market and we were running deficits. And if you’re running deficits, you’re running your country on the last run of expenditure on borrowed money. And if no one will lend you, I mean, the choices are then make a big correction overnight...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: Or doing it over a period of time. And what the bailout did is it allowed the adjustment to be made over a period of time.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: A good bit of it was done by my predecessor, Brian Lenihan. But there was ... you know, arising from the Honohan report in particular, there were specific measures specified. And in my lengthy introductory statement, I outlined the legislation that was carried out there. But in terms of the discussion, it would have been done by agreement - principally between the Department of Finance,...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: Pressure of work mostly. All the things that the Department of Finance had to do around the bailout and since. But I was clearing the legislative programme with the various A, B and C lists which are to be circulated to the Dáil shortly. And in the second list, there's a proposal to introduce a Central Bank consolidating Act. So there's some progress being made. This morning I was...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: Yes, you read your list very rapidly but it seems to me that the way the Central Bank is structured now and the way it is bedded in law allows it to fulfil all those. I mean, the Central Bank is the single regulator now and it has the capacity. It's independent, under law. It also is very well resourced, because it's very profitable, and it isn’t subject to any of the recruitment...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: Yes, there was a debate about that back in the '90s, you know, and there was an Oireachtas committee put in place under Deputy Michael Ahern and I served on it. And at the time, the argument was that because it single-mindedly ... because the Central Bank single-mindedly concentrated on the stability of the bank, it ignored consumer interests. So that's the only qualifier I’d have....

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: Yes. Like, without having worked in a place, you're never sure how internal procedures worked. But in terms of accountability, the Governor of the Central Bank is very amenable to the Oireachtas, for example. And I understand he has appeared before the Finance Committee on a number of occasions with his senior staff and shows no reluctance to answer any questions that are put to him. And,...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: Well, you know, any big institution that has loans right through the economy, even if it becomes insolvent, if you pull the plug overnight, there'll be huge damage. Like, Lehman Brothers, when the plug was pulled in the States, did huge damage. But it can be wound down over time, which is what we decided to do with the liquidation. So my answer is that if you do it, like, in one fell swoop...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: I supported the guarantee and I qualified what I was doing on the night. And I spoke to my own people and I said, "Look, we don't much choice but to support it, but it is too widely cast". And then I asked the question during the debate to know was it intended to solve a liquidity problem or a solvency problem and the late Brian Lenihan assured me that it was liquidity. Now, I don't think...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: Well, first of all-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: First of all, I liked him and respected him. News of his untimely death came in when the Government was having a meeting in Farmleigh and I did it outside the door at Farmleigh for the one o'clock news what you've just quoted. You know, I wanted to be consistent with the attitude I had taken when I was opposing him in opposition. And I had said in opposition on interviews that I agreed...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: No. I don't think he was given bad information or incorrect information by the Department of Finance, but I don't think the banks gave full information the night of the guarantee. I don't know, I mean, you've heard them here. But my view always was that full information wasn't given to the policymakers around the time of the guarantee. And, certainly, I don't think Anglo Irish Bank gave...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: You know, like with ... you know these situations. And you're in politics a long time and you come from a distinguished political family. You owe it to everybody, no matter what you're saying, to be consistent and truthful. So I was trying to make sure that there was a fulsome tribute being paid, which I was sincere about, but, at the same time, I didn't want to pretend that I hadn't been...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: No. I had no first-hand knowledge of it. But like everybody else-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: -----I'd be interested in the evidence the bankers gave, you know.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: No. Brian Lenihan, the late Brian Lenihan, was held in very high regard in the Department of Finance. Any official I ever spoke to spoke well of him and spoke well of his abilities and also spoke in terms of he being a nice person to work with, you know. I have already told the Department I'm going to succeed myself, so it's on that basis they're preparing the file.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: Yes, I mean, there has been a whole corpus of law put in under the Central Bank now. And I suppose the best test of it is the Governor, Patrick Honohan, hasn't come to me looking for any amendments in law to strengthen his position as Governor or the position of the various regulators that work to him.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: Yes. Like the process is there is MAC, Civil Service MAC, where the management team meet every week and they discuss all issues. Now I don't attend the MAC; I get reports from the MAC. But one of my political advisers attends the MAC. But then when submissions are made to me, they're made in writing and there is always a recommendation to agree or disagree, or note or whatever. But...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Michael Noonan: When was that?