Results 3,521-3,540 of 4,414 for speaker:Sean Barrett

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Because, as you know, we've changed those arrangements since. It was an issue at the time, as to whether that division was ... ever made any sense. And Senator O'Keeffe has spoken with you about the issue of whether it was liquidity, as Mr. Hurley said, or in fact it was the wrong business model, insolvency, and the NTMA believed that and they were in the building. And certainly the other...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Would it be possible to design contracts which would specify the amounts so that that, kind of, cost escalation, or, indeed, moral hazard problem wouldn't occur afterwards?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: But that leaves the taxpayer completely exposed to a massive escalation in the bill.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: But we didn't really know what we were guaranteeing, that there was hidden losses in there.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Could due diligence have a different interpretation in case we have this repeated in the future? Could people have actually gone in and provided the estimate back to those in Government Buildings on 29 September, "This is what you're really getting into, not what you've been told"?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: And finally, your point on, on page five, there was no bank resolution available to the Government to resolve it in a controlled manner. Has that been rectified?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Thank you very much gentlemen. Thank you, Chairman.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Thank you, Chairman, and welcome, Mr. Ahern. On page 55 of the core documents, Vol. 5, I am sure you recognise the quote anyway ... should you have sought out Morgan Kelly to discuss this analysis and you say: I wish I had, I wish I had run into him at a match somewhere. ... I do acknowledge Morgan Kelly got it right more than [the] others. Could I contrast that with a few pages earlier,...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: I think that is implied yes, that he got it right more than the others.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Because by contrast, the domestic standing group, which you mentioned in your presentation to us, it's really the policy insiders and by 2007, the damage was really done, wasn't it? So you need some way to get to the Taoiseach independent high-calibre economic advice.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: But when houses go from two-and-a-half times average income to ten to 12 times average income, that's a huge loss of competitiveness that we had in all of that period.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: In the same volume, Mr. Ahern, on page 26 again, there's how the housing policy ended up. It's a report by Maynooth; it'll come up on the screen if ... or I think you have the hard copies: "What the data reveal is a pattern of development that ran counter to what one would have expected or hoped for - those local authorities that had the most vacant stock in 2006, subsequently built the most...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Could I ask, in relation to your previous profession of accounting, how did auditors of Irish banks miss so much? We had evidence here of banks being solvent in June 2008 and into Brian Cowen's office a few weeks later, looking for €64 billion. Do you think auditing standards in Ireland are high enough in banks?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: We had cases where the regulator drew the attention of certain banks to their sectoral concentrations and the response was, "Yes, we're quite comfortable [that was the word used] with our sectoral concentrations", i.e. all in construction. I mean, what should happen in that case? Should those regulators get in touch with the Taoiseach and say that "We're trying to regulate this sector which...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: -----you know, that there's just too much sectoral concentration in construction."

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: There was a public sector view, as you know, in the NTMA, that some of the banks were, in fact ... they wouldn't put their ... the pension fund into them because they had concerns about the solvency and yet it was Government policy to save those institutions afterwards.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Thank you, Mr. Ahern.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (16 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Thank you, Chair.

Seanad: Order of Business (17 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: I echo the sentiments of Senator Mooney and the Leader on the loss of Alexis Fitzgerald, a most popular, friendly and courteous man to meet. I extend the sympathy of the Independent Senators to his wife, Mary. I welcome that two of the students injured in Berkeley, Niall Murray and Jack Halpin, are returning to Ireland this week. For them and the others who survived that tragedy - Sean...

Seanad: Order of Business (17 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Hear, hear.