Results 2,401-2,420 of 4,414 for speaker:Sean Barrett

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: Should Ireland not have dumped the Generally Accepted Accounting Practice, GAAP, for International Accounting Standards, IAS, 39? Is there substance in that, as opposed to a technical accounting matter, that we can explain to the people at home? Was it a serious change?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome Mr. McWilliams, with whom I have had many previous meetings on these topics. During what years was Mr. McWilliams at the Central Bank?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: In what section was Mr. McWilliams?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: Were issues of the prudential regulation of banks discussed when Mr. McWilliams's group got together in the Central Bank?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: We were asking about the prudential regulation of banks. Did Mr. McWilliams ever come across the people who were in charge of that?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: There was criticism in the Honohan report of the fact that approximately 15 out of 1,200 staff were working on prudential regulation of banks.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: That did not seem to indicate that it was much of a priority. I take it Mr. McWilliams did not meet the people who had the job of ensuring banks were solvent.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: It argued very strongly against the McDowell report. It wanted to regulate the banks. Could Mr. McWilliams see it carrying out that task?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: When we joined the euro, against the advice of Mr. McWilliams and others, could we have regulated the flow of capital to keep it out of property and mortgages?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: What could we have done about commercial property? We have heard evidence that commercial property was even more toxic.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: Mr. McWilliams liked Sweden and Switzerland. I ask him to tell us what they did.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: I would still like to ask Mr. McWilliams about Switzerland.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome Professor McDonough. This is the third member of the Galway troika. Professor John McHale comes in quite a lot and Professor Alan Ahearne does as well. Professor McDonough, on page 8, states, "This is not a question, as some have recommended, of hiring more economists in the Department of Finance". What did he mean by that?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: It was not the IMF, but the Department of Finance, about which Professor McDonough wrote.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: The IMF only paid flying visits. I refer to the staff who were there all the time in the Department of Finance. The evidence we heard from Mr. Wright was that they represented 7% of the total staff complement in the core of Finance, compared to 60% in Canada and 40% in the Netherlands. Why would Professor McDonough keep it at 7%?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: If one retains the number of qualified economists at only 7%, would that not lead to the professor's other problem of light-touch regulation? If one is to regulate a sector, one had better have qualified staff there to do it.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: We had the large capital inflow that Professor McDonough criticised earlier. It happened. One was outvoted, if one had wanted not to join the euro. What would Professor McDonough have done, if he were the Governor of the Central Bank and he saw this significant capital inflow coming into Ireland in 2003? How would he have responded?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: How should banks be regulated in that context?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: In the Irish system what proportion of bank funding does Professor McDonough believe should be in equity?

Seanad: Order of Business (3 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: In view of the concern expressed on both sides of the House on the withdrawal of certain bus services from rural areas, I call for a debate on rural transport. There are many options. The school bus service ends soon after 9 a.m. each morning. A total of 114,000 children travel on the service every day, amounting to 42 million trips per year on 6,000 routes. There is an independent bus...