Results 3,321-3,340 of 4,414 for speaker:Sean Barrett

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (25 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: Thank you, Chairman, and welcome back, Governor. You, in your presentation on page 9, you model the cost of our troubles in this regard as €100 billion, compared to how the economy would have performed "in the presence of [a] prudent pre-crisis banking practice". From watching it, what do you think happened to Irish banking? I think, you know, a most conservative, straight banking...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (25 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: In relation to the world as we plan it ahead, Governor, how would we decide what's the optimal rate of credit growth in an economy like Ireland? Obviously something below 25% per annum, but is there a formula which you've come across in your studies?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (25 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: Yes?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (25 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: Are we protected now against sectoral concentration in construction and in commercial property, in particular?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (25 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: If we decide that X - we'll use that - is the optimum rate of growth and credit, how can we separate that X in allocating it to the pillar banks and non-pillar banks? Would your successor have to intervene at that level?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (25 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: How do we compare, in regulatory regime and procedures, now to international comparisons? And, I suppose, The Economistraises Canada, Australia and Singapore as places which regulated banks and didn't get into the kind of difficulties that other countries did.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (25 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: They may send for you, of course, in your career change.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (25 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: Openness and communication and nobody afraid to speak up. Can that survive when you depart, because we've had witnesses here who very obviously don't believe in openness and communication? And with you being absent from the principals in future, I just would be worried about that. It's not common yet in the Central Bank, the banks themselves or the Department of Finance.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (25 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: In the list of mortgage misdemeanours, you didn't name the individual banks. Doesn't that contrast with the UK, where a man was deprived of his knighthood and the fines were imposed on named banks? Is this light-touch regulation?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (25 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: The Chairman reserves the right to ask that question.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (25 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: When you were announcing your retirement, you seemed to express the view that the next Governor should not be a person like you which ... could you describe the ideal next Governor? What you had in mind when you said in that?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (25 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: Did you imply an administrator rather than an academic as the next Governor?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (25 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: Hear, hear.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications: National Postcode System - Eircode: Loc8 Code Limited (30 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome Mr. Delaney. Like the Chairman, I have listened to all the evidence and I thank Mr. Delaney for the documents he sent us. My concerns about this project grow every time I hear more detail at these meetings. Supposing we do nothing - I know this has been through the tendering process and so on - the taxpayer saves €27 million and An Post continues to deliver 98% of the post...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications: National Postcode System - Eircode: Loc8 Code Limited (30 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: I thank the Chairman. I am indebted to him for what he does. Obviously, the matter has been around the Department since 2006 and we have heard from witness after witness. I do not think anybody who has appeared before the committee would not put €27 million of their own money into this project. What is it supposed to be doing?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications: National Postcode System - Eircode: Loc8 Code Limited (30 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: At the moment, 98% of the post is delivered the next day. Even if this were a perfect system, it would achieve an improvement of only two percentage points, although no organisation operates at 100%. In the context of the Chairman's earlier comment that we all recognised in 2011 that there had to be reform of the way we look at public expenditure, even though one of the referendums did...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications: National Postcode System - Eircode: Loc8 Code Limited (30 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: I think Mr. Carr's people had the numbers with them. An experience I have had, in a constituency which is on both sides of the Border - that of graduates of Trinity College Dublin - is that the Northern Ireland address codes are an extra nuisance. I know where a man lives in Clones, but I will be asking what the seven-digit code for Newtownbutler is, when it is only six or seven miles...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications: National Postcode System - Eircode: Loc8 Code Limited (30 Jun 2015)

Sean Barrett: After Irish Water, we have to be really careful. If we tell every household in the country that their address has now changed to have seven characters of mixed digits and letters, it may be the last straw. People will say, "What is this? It is more madness." I am afraid of that. I certainly hope it is kicked to touch until after the election for that very reason. There have to be...

Seanad: Harmful and Malicious Electronic Communications Bill 2015: Second Stage [Private Members] (1 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: I compliment Senator Higgins and her co-sponsors on the Bill she has presented for our consideration. I welcome the indication by the Minister of State, Deputy Gerald Nash, that these proposals will be considered when the five issues to which he referred have been reported upon by the Law Reform Commission. I missed most of the debate, unfortunately, as I had to attend the sitting of the...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Thank you. And welcome to-----