Results 6,361-6,380 of 27,019 for speaker:Michael Noonan
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: Or words to that effect.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: I don't know how it was phrased, but that's what the meaning of it was.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: Oh no.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: What I'm saying is that all the way through, with statements I made before the election, during the election and after the election and in the Fine Gael programme for Government, and in the programme for Government, Fine Gael said that we would impose burden-sharing on senior bondholders and change the law to do so if the Central Bank consented to us doing it.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: Well, look, we came into government on 9 March, you know. You were involved, first of all, in getting a private secretary and sorting yourself out, finding your way around the place, and you're involved with the troika and you're involved with the Europeans, so the priority was sorting out the banks. We didn't have a banking system, really, when we went into government, and three weeks...
- 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: Well, you see, the Commission wasn't the decision maker because, as you heard in evidence already today, these were issues ... there were intergovernmental issues. So the interest rate issue was an intergovernmental issue, because the creditors were the sovereigns of Europe. And it wasn't the Commission. Olli Rehn was in favour of reduced interest rates all the time, and he was the...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: What's the date?
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: Yes, it would have been a variety of issues. It would be interest rates. It would have been promissory notes, certainly, at that stage. We'd have started it at that stage. But, I mean, the governor of the European Central Bank usually attends Eurogroup meetings and ECOFIN meetings, so I'd be meeting him twice a month anyway, and I've had several conversations with him on the margins of...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: That was certainly part of the reason. Another part of the reason was that they were getting to know us in Europe at that stage, and they knew we weren't some kind of bandit government and that, you know, we were going to work the programme if we got it renegotiated. And a level of trust had begun to build up and as the trust built up, they were prepared to make concessions to us. So, I'm...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: But, certainly, I found Mr. Draghi helpful all the way through.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: Well, no. I read the Wright report and I met Mr. Wright when he was over. I think he spoke to the finance committee and I had a conversation with him. He told me he was happy with the progress that was made in the Department of Finance in implementing the recommendations that he made and I think he spoke in similar terms at the finance committee. I didn't read the minutes of that. I...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: NAMA was set up under statute by the previous Government and the express purpose of putting it in place was to clean the banks' balance sheets by taking over the impaired loans that you referred to and they, you know, have a particular funding model. And they started pretty quickly then to dispose of loans and to get a return for the Irish taxpayer. I think they sequenced it because the...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: Well, when I went into government in March of 2011, IBRC was down €41 billion to the European Central Bank in ELA funding and in the proposal put forward by the previous Government the previous January, they had made allowance for €50 billion of ELA funding. So, the chairman and the chief executive of IBRC constantly talk as if IBRC was a going concern. IBRC was a bust bank...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: Anglo was a bust bank and that's it.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: I think the situation has improved a lot and a lot of the changes that have been made are systemic and they'll be difficult to unwind, but there is pressure to restore everything we cut and everything we changed. Now, like, if you ... if you change back to where we started, you're only going back to the causes of the problem. The other issue is in the dialogue down in Dublin Castle....
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: Everybody comes up with new spending programmes.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: Well, criminal law is adequate in this country, I'm advised. Three senior bankers are now in jail and other cases are pending. So, there isn't a necessity for new law, but I think the process is slow. But that's not a matter of law.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: Yes, well, first of all, I'm still of the same view - as the view you quoted - that I expressed in December of 2010 and I did pursue it to the point where, as I outlined this morning, I came to the view that the risks that were put to me exceeded the possible gain we would get by burning bondholders. But I had gone so far as drafting a speech where I was prepared to bring in legislation to...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Michael Noonan: No, it's not academic, you know. We will-----