Results 6,321-6,340 of 27,019 for speaker:Michael Noonan

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

Michael Noonan: So I'm holding the line until I get better arguments.

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

Michael Noonan: Well, this is what's generally referred to as reactive capitalisation of the banks.

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

Michael Noonan: When that was conceived of first, it was always envisaged that there would be an exchange of the shares in the banks for money from the ESM and ... that they'd take the shares and they'd give us money and we'd use the money to reduce the debt. And that was the way it was conceived and for a while I would have thought that that was a reasonable solution. If we had activated it after the...

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

Michael Noonan: Yes, that's about it. We got ... we, we succeeded in ensuring that the legal power to retroactively recapitalise banks is in the regulations for the ESM. So, they can legally do it. I know from finance Ministers there is no disposition among some of them - naming Germany, Netherlands, Finland and a few more - to use this power. And the power must be used on the unanimous agreement of the...

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

Michael Noonan: Yes, I thought originally it could be done. I announced the package of budgetary reform, where we'd have a spring statement, and we've delivered on that, and where we'd have an economic dialogue, which we had in the castle in the summertime. And the third leg of that trilogy was an independent budget office to which I'm committed, but when I took advice from officials and cross-matched it...

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

Michael Noonan: Because in ... in the bank restructuring package, we were reducing effective banking to two pillar banks: AIB and Bank of Ireland. And we foresaw that very shortly they would be trying to get funds on the market. And the advice from the Central Bank and from Finance - and the NTMA didn't push that advice, you know, beyond having written it, they didn't push it hard - that the risk was too...

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

Michael Noonan: But I mean, all these things are ... all these things are, are the best, the best decision you can make-----

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

Michael Noonan: -----on the advice available. And, I mean, there's ... there's counterarguments. I'd be the first to admit that.

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

Michael Noonan: We were ... we were looking for a statement of support and we got it at the end of the day, but my memory of it is that it was the format of the statement that was at issue rather than no statement at all. I mean, you could have a statement like we got after 18 months of dealing with the promissory note - "we note the decision of the Irish Central Bank" - which hardly did justice to what had...

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

Michael Noonan: Yes.

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

Michael Noonan: I think, I think that was the position, and we were ... I remember going into the Dáil signing off on a statement I'd agreed to, late as I was to the Dáil, on the way in, from the first floor there going in that top door. I was stopped by an official and they said, "We've got an e-mail now from ... from Frankfurt, and, you know, could you agree this statement?" And it was ... it...

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

Michael Noonan: Yes, I mean, I'd have to send you a schedule of the savings because if I tried to speak from memory, and I don't think I have a document that covers everything.

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

Michael Noonan: I will, I ... I'll go through that. The first thing was that it ... I think it was your second witness this morning said that many of the things were decisions for the finance Ministers and on the political side rather than from the Commission. And, you know, when the interest rates were designed for programme countries, Ireland being second up, in their wisdom, some of the Ministers from...

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

Michael Noonan: Well there was a second ... a second round then, when there was a concession made for Cyprus and ourselves and Portugal got together, and we said under the precedents, we want to get the same treatment. So we did get a further reduction so-----

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

Michael Noonan: -----the interest rates that now apply to the official debt are ... there is very little above cost.

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

Michael Noonan: Well after that then we got the promissory note that you'd be familiar with.

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

Michael Noonan: Well, once I finish it. And then we got permission to refinance the IMF loans. I always said the IMF loans were worth €1.5 billion to us but the Commission's assessment of that was €2.1 billion, and the way it's working out now, it's ... they're nearer to being right than we were. We're always very conservative in the claims we make, you know. So that was the next piece of...

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

Michael Noonan: Well, you see, it wouldn't be unless ... if they were proactive, maybe, yes, but like I asked them to examine their whole portfolio and see are there other things you can do where you have a high-cost instrument and replace it with a low-cost instrument, and they're doing that as part of normal practice.

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

Michael Noonan: Well, first of all, we were trying to come up with an alternative to the promissory note. And it would involve, obviously, the European Central Bank. And after a lot of discussions at different levels, the European Central Bank's biggest problem was while they would agree to some level of principle that what we were looking for was a request that they would consider, that their legal...

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

Michael Noonan: Yes. And because, you know, the Irish paper in the Central Bank, you have to pay interest on it. The Exchequer has to pay interest on it.