Results 6,361-6,380 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. All right.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Forde, did you see the testimony yesterday of the chief executive and chairman of NAMA?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. Can I put some of that testimony to you from the chairman, Frank Daly? And both made serious reference to the equality of the security that banks had or didn't have, in terms of massive loans. Mr. Daly said, "The safety zone of borrower equity usually existed only on paper. The result is that the borrower was typically not the first to lose. In the event of a crash, the banks stood...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: And some would say you were building houses for the people that were coming into ... or to build them, but we'll leave that aside for the moment. In terms of the type of rigour or non-rigour that was brought to projects that came, of a large order, before you, does the charge that the NAMA chairman and chief executive made apply?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes. In that regard-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: -----we had testimony from Professor Black. Are you familiar with Professor Black?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: No. He's a quite well known former regulator, academic and financial prosecutor from the United States. And he came to give us testimony, and he spoke about a similar situation, of banks or financial institutions extending loans. And he said we intervened to stop loans that we called liar loans, and the Chairman, Deputy Lynch, intervened and asked: "In terms of what Professor Black means...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: How much ... what total volume of loans went into NAMA from Allied Irish Banks?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: Twenty billion?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: Well, would that suggest that indeed there was a catastrophic fall down in regard to the collateral and the security that was available?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: You say to us today Mr. Forde: AIB lending decisions were based on the belief, now obviously mistaken, that long established, experienced scale-players in the property market represented a better risk than smaller less experienced counterparties. They were seen to have had a track record of performance and built up significant equity." A stunning irony struck me in relation to that, I...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Forde, the report of the Allied Irish Banks said that in 2004 you took home a salary of €575,000 and a bonus of €600,000 - €1.75 million. Is that an inordinate amount of money, in view particularly of what happened very shortly after that? And secondly, my last question is in relation to the people out there who have been burned badly as a result of the bubble and...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (29 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: Gentlemen, can I ask you if you're aware of the testimony of Professor Bill Black to the inquiry?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (29 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes. In his testimony, Professor Black, who was a renowned regulator and prosecutor of financial institutions that failed in the United States, said that there was a recipe which banks followed which ... that if banks followed, which would "produce the worst losses and is most likely to cause hyper-inflated bubbles" and that recipe includes grow like crazy, and he mentions 25%, and he...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (29 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes, briefly, thanks.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (29 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: Can I put it to you, gentlemen, that already by the 1990s there was a substantial body of study of banking crises internationally, which had all the features, virtually, of what happened in Ireland? Mr. Black, for example, supplements ... or his analysis is supplemented by an article written in 1993 by two Berkeley professors, one of whom, George Akerlof, in a Nobel laureate. I don't expect...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (29 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes. Why would you not have been aware of this, or were you?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (29 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: I was just quoting the-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (29 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Sheehy, Professor Black says that there is a perverse incentive for senior executives to increase the balance sheet because it's linked to their salary and bonuses. The record of AIB, annual reports will show, that your remuneration substantially increased, along with a substantial increase in the balance sheet growth. Was Professor Black correct?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (29 Apr 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Sheehy, between 2005 and 2009 you earned, in salary and bonuses, €7.6 million, which would take an industrial worker 190 years to earn. In view of the apology you made and the mistakes that were made, which you said, did you consider giving a contribution-----