Results 5,021-5,040 of 15,555 for speaker:Eoghan Murphy

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

Eoghan Murphy: Okay. The final question I wanted to ask was in relation to lessons for the future. You spoke about prudent being not spending all your tax receipts in a given year, so I just wondered what the current thinking is, in relation to when you have a surplus, is it to run a surplus, is it to direct a surplus into some sort of fund like a pension reserve fund, or is it to pay off the debt? What...

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

Eoghan Murphy: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

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

Eoghan Murphy: Thank you Chairman and thank you Mr. McCreevy, you are very welcome. I want to go right back if I may just prior to you becoming Minister for Finance. In opposition you expressed a number of reservations about our entry into the euro and just two months before you were made Minister for Finance you said in an interview with Jane Suiter, "It will be interesting to see if you can have...

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

Eoghan Murphy: Mr. McCreevy-----

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

Eoghan Murphy: Yes, I want to ask you about this though because this was predicted in 1998 that once you fixed the exchange rate mechanism, that there would be a push for a fall in interest rates following which a wall of money would hit the Irish economy. So that was being written about in The Irish Timesin 1998, on the Monday just after you fixed the exchange rate mechanism, so what did you do to prepare...

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

Eoghan Murphy: But it was predicted.

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

Eoghan Murphy: But did you foresee the problem coming?

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

Eoghan Murphy: Okay, just coming back to this idea of preparing for consequences of that decision, and the reduction in interest rates, and what that would mean for the Irish economy, and your time as Minister, not going back to the committee before you were Minister, what were you and your officials doing to prepare the economy for this new money coming in?

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

Eoghan Murphy: Mr. McCreevy, could you just stick to the questions that I am asking, please? I mean, I appreciate that you have, you know, a right to answer the questions but I'm trying to pursue a particular line of evidence. Now you mention in your reply there about the success of your budgetary policy as part of you preparing for the dangers of, the risks associated with euro entry. But, in 2001, at...

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

Eoghan Murphy: Thank you, Chair, it's Vol. 1, page 13, "The Council regrets that this advice was not reflected in the budget for 2001, despite developments in the course of 2000 indicating an increasing extent of overheating." That's a censure that came from the Commission in 2001, which you have alluded to in your opening statement. So that's what the Commission is saying about Irish budgetary policy and...

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

Eoghan Murphy: Exactly. By the end of 2001; but this is the beginning of 2001. So, it was an accident.

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

Eoghan Murphy: This wasn't a prediction, this was looking back, at previous budgets. I'm not talking about their recommendations for the coming budget, that they would make recommendations together with the opinion, I'm talking about them regretting that the advice was not reflected in the budget for 2001, "despite developments in the course of 2000 indicating an increasing extent of overheating". They're...

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

Eoghan Murphy: Based on overheating in 2000.

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

Eoghan Murphy: In relation to the recommendation for the future, because of what happened subsequently in the course of 2001.

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

Eoghan Murphy: Okay, let us accept that on the Commission side. The Central Bank pre-budget letters, the pre-budget letter in 2000 - this is coming in at the end of 2000 for 2001- talks about commercial property prices as a source of concern, this is page 83 in Vol. 2, it warns about competitiveness in the economy and the heightened "risk of a hard landing for the economy", because of decisions taken. So...

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

Eoghan Murphy: Are they both wrong?

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

Eoghan Murphy: So the Central Bank and the Commission were wrong?

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

Eoghan Murphy: And did you pay any attention to the pre-budget letters that came from the Central Bank, in your time as Minister?

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

Eoghan Murphy: Okay, I want to move on to the McDowell report concerning regulation of the banking sector and the financial sector. We know that the report argued for a different model, excuse me, of a fully independent and autonomous financial regulator but the Central Bank and the Department of Finance were both against that recommendation. So what were your views on the model that was eventually...

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

Eoghan Murphy: Thank you for that. I want to move on now to the budgetary process when you were Minister and just again in that interview that I quoted from Jane Suiter, two months before you were made Minister you said, "No matter what the Minister says at the Cabinet table, they [and you are inferring the Cabinet] will not listen in the year of an election." Now, in Vol. 1, page 33, we have an excerpt...