Results 3,081-3,100 of 4,414 for speaker:Sean Barrett

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (28 May 2015)

Sean Barrett: Yes, I think you've dealt with it I ... I'm satisfied, thank you, but it's just that we've other questions and I see the clock running down. Now, you referred - with Deputy Doherty - to the very small number of people who were at the core of this ... that concentration. There was also, within that small number of people, a massive investment outside Ireland. Did that come to your attention...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (28 May 2015)

Sean Barrett: Well, you call it diversification. Could it also be called a disaster, that the Irish taxpayer had to bail out people who had no transactions within the jurisdiction, that it was no benefit at all if people borrowed from banks, which then became insolvent, to engage in property transactions in other countries? Should that not have been a concern?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (28 May 2015)

Sean Barrett: Were you surprised by the 61% discount that NAMA applied?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (28 May 2015)

Sean Barrett: Could I move on in that section, if I may? You have this group, in the first half of 2006, on page 122, said ''the funding gap continues to widen, suggesting that the risk of a country-specific shock could pose liquidity or refinancing risks for banks''. That was in the beginning of 2006, two and a half years out from the crisis. Nothing seemed to follow from that finding.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (28 May 2015)

Sean Barrett: Moving on a year and a half, if I may, it says ''the tone and comment in the Financial Stability Report will be of particular importance and sensitivity''. So we are getting another year closer to the crisis and the minutes are worried about tone and comment-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (28 May 2015)

Sean Barrett: ----- rather than anything quantified or anything precipitating a need to do something rather than write, you know, rather soporific minutes.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (28 May 2015)

Sean Barrett: And the last one we have of those minutes, page 125, there's mention twice of communications relationships, relationships communications ... at that stage was it more sociology than bank regulation?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (28 May 2015)

Sean Barrett: Thank you, yes. There's lessons learned from recent events. You mentioned in your statement that there were 86 people working in the economics section.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (28 May 2015)

Sean Barrett: And none ... no economists in your section. Did that ever arise, "Let's get some of the economists upstairs down to help us in this vital area"?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (28 May 2015)

Sean Barrett: And calling on your 38 years of experience in central banking as well, I think the principles-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (28 May 2015)

Sean Barrett: Thank you, Chairman ... the principles doesn't work. Professor Black said fines would probably be paid by the company. Are we really looking for compliance at imprisonment in this sector for breaches?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (28 May 2015)

Sean Barrett: Thank you, Mr. Neary, and thank you, Chair.

Seanad: Order of Business (9 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: With regard to Senator Darragh O'Brien's amendment and Senator Ivana Bacik's response, there was more than €500 million in cash when the Government decided to sell Aer Lingus, for which the pensioners make a more deserving case than the shareholders of British Airways. I still oppose the deal. The document in the Oireachtas Library of a mere two pages is totally inadequate to address...

Seanad: Yeats 2015: Statements (9 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister and thank her for the speech and the investment being put into the 150th anniversary of the birth of William Butler Yeats. When Seamus Heaney won the Nobel Prize, he quoted from the Yeats speech of 1923, when he stated: "I consider this honour has come to me less as an individual than as a representative of Irish literature. It is part of Europe's welcome to the Irish...

Seanad: Draft Commission of Investigation (Certain matters concerning transactions entered into by IBRC) Order 2015: Motion (10 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister. I second what Senator Michael D'Arcy said about the matter. We should remember the late Brian Lenihan today on the anniversary of his death. Last night we were honouring W.B. Yeats. When he was asked what went on in the Seanad, he said the real work of legislation was done in meetings dominated by "old lawyers, old bankers, old businessmen, who ... have begun to...

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

Sean Barrett: Thank you, Chairman. Just taking up the Chairman's question to you there, if I may, and you're welcome, Ms O'Dea. What was your experience of the interaction with the international authorities during 2009?

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

Sean Barrett: And with the European authorities?

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

Sean Barrett: And ... you know, given that we've been building the single currency for ten years and it was obviously getting into trouble and we knew that so much was going wrong in Ireland, was it not strange that we didn't interact with the Europeans through that period?

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

Sean Barrett: On your document No. 1, if I may, Vol.1, on page 9, it says in section vi), "In addition to the above mainly domestic responsibilities, they contribute to promoting improvements in the international financial system, mainly through involvement in international fora." And that was a 2003 document. Were we doing that in the lead-in to the crisis?

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

Sean Barrett: The duties of the Governor and the board.