Results 3,961-3,980 of 4,414 for speaker:Sean Barrett
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: Thank you very much. And welcome, Minister Noonan. In his testimony to the inquiry, the former chairman of IFSRA, Brian Patterson, noted that the Financial Regulator was reluctant to use its sanctioning powers due to real concerns about legal and possible constitutional challenge. Has that been resolved since as far as we know, Minister?
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: You mentioned in your statement on page 7 that the Wright report identified the Department of Finance as one of the strongest contrarians during the previous decade. But I think there was a reluctance to write things down. Wasn't that one of the problems he found too - what was the nature of the contrarianism? Has that changed in your time?
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: One of the things we found, Minister, was an OECD report being fairly severely censored without being shown to the Minister. Does that custom still-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: I think that was in 2008. And some of the things, I think, were interesting about bank resolution and so on and changing bank housing bubble to some word less strong. And it seemed to have developed that the officials got the chance to do this unbeknown to the Minister.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: Yes.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: On the same theme, Minister, ringing up the ESRI if they didn't much like what was in a quarterly or in a medium-term review, John FitzGerald referred to something, code-named "Nervous Nellie". He used to ring up if he didn't like what the ESRI was saying. So, I mean, the new dispensation, that kind of-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: Of course. The Government economic evaluation service - can it become on the expenditure side the kind of body that IFAC is on the taxation side?
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: I think... when we get legislation in the Seanad or in the Dáil, shouldn't it have economic evaluations attached to it? Regulatory impact assessments seem to be declining in the numbers. In other words, we want to participate in the contrarian views being known. I think it's in the background, Minister, that there was so much consensus/complacency that one has to ensure that doesn't...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: The public capital programme historically didn't have much in the way of economic appraisals. Should that be changed, given the importance of investment and that it should yield a return and not just leave a bundle of debt for yourself or future Ministers to deal with?
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: Was the split of the Department of Finance and public administration and reform, while vital in dealing with the bank crisis ... is it the correct way to go forward into a more non-critical situation?
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: Has Irish banking been able to move away from its property fixation? I mean, we'd some numbers, Minister, that 8%-9% of some of our pillar banks, of their investment, was in industry and agriculture combined and multiples of that into property. Can you turn them around to make them more interested in developing the wider economy?
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: Good.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: Were there codes for the relationship between bank regulators and banks, you know, and what should they be? I mean, one model might be that the bank regulator should be hated by the banks because he is controlling them in the public interest, and not be seen as part of the bank industry. When Governor Honohan gave notice that he was leaving, the headline was "Top Banker Quits". Well, he's...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: In your reply to Deputy Doherty, you mentioned the-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: Thank you, Chairman. The 39 economists that Mr. Wright found and contrasted it with your opposite number ... Jim Flaherty had, in Ottawa, a much larger complement. I mean, we have a document that's circulated to us today which shows 39 masters in the economic section and one PhD, so it's almost the same as the number that Mr. Wright wrote about-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: Yes.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: Yes.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: It's the table on page 18, Minister, and thank you very much. And thank you, Chairman.
- Seanad: Order of Business (23 Sep 2015)
Sean Barrett: Disability groups lobbied overnight on two occasions last week outside the Taoiseach’s office and Leinster House. They were asking that payments be made to them directly rather than through corporate bodies. We have discussed, at the instigation of Senator Colm Burke, the position of section 39 bodies. I ask the Leader to organise a debate on the possibility of directing finances...