Results 6,561-6,580 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Well, let's tease it out a little bit further. When you were examining Ulster Bank, the Governor of the Central Bank, currently Patrick Honohan, said in the Economic and Social Review summer 2009:A very simple warning sign used by most regulators to identify a bank exposed to increased risk is rapid balance sheet growth. An annual real growth rate of 20% is often taken as the trigger. ...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: But there's the rub Mr. Fitzpatrick. In a sense of course the information was there, but the danger of what that information indicated ... as the Governor hints, and for example in evidence Dr. Alan Ahearne referred to a study he did in 2005 of, I think it's 44 housing boom and slumps, showing how over extension of credit, etc., finishes up in disaster. Should those figures not have sent...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: But were you or not perhaps looking at all the waves as they were coming towards the shore one by one, concentrated on that and you didn't see the tsunami that was being generated further out that eventually overwhelmed the system?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: So, Mr. Cullen-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Sorry?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Nearly three, Chair.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Cullen, various sectors have come in here and said they accepted certain responsibility for the horrific crisis that emerged from the bubble. Does the auditing profession take any responsibility for what happened, the bubble and the bust?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Fitzpatrick, can you comment on the maintenance and availability of concise and accurate management information on a group-wide basis by Ulster Bank Ireland Limited? Were you satisfied, for example, that you had access to accurate management information which allowed you to discern the full financial position of the group at all times?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Were there any possible issues relating to the generation of reports used to inform the financial statements, for example, the level of use of manual rather than system-generated spreadsheets for the preparation of reports, the completeness of reports, if drawn from across the groups, and the possibility of imprecise figures as a result?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (14 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes, thank you. Mr. Burrows it is long considered that a prudent loan-to-deposit ratio for banks should be of the order of 120% or lower. Why was this target so severely breached in the ... up to 2008, when it reached 176%?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (14 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Burrows, witnesses from Bank of Ireland have fairly consistently, some people might feel, have tried to diminish the extent of the losses or the mistakes by reference to competitors who fared much worse in the crash. Is that what you have just done now again?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (14 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: And was that a factor generally that led to so much crisis around the world?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (14 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: But does that beg the question Mr. Burrows whether ... was it appropriate to have reached that huge level of 176%? Was that appropriate?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (14 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: But the bank ... can you explain why the bank and, apparently from the documentation we have, your advisers at the time didn't see the danger that was looming here? Can you explain why that was the case?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (14 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: The Governor of the Central Bank, Patrick Honohan, said in an article, summer 2009, in The Economic and Social Review:A very simple warning sign used by most regulators to identify a bank exposed to increased risk is rapid balance sheet growth. An annual real growth rate of 20% is often taken as the trigger. And that growth rate and greater would have been appropriate or what Bank of...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (14 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes, but the economy wasn't growing by anything like 20%, Mr. Burrows.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (14 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: A former US regulator, Bill Black, gave evidence to the inquiry, are you familiar with Mr. Black?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (14 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. Mr. Black, who was a regulator and has a huge amount of experience in regulation and in dealing with bank crashes from the late 1980s and 1990s on, but he said a number of ingredients could be guaranteed in a banking system to cause catastrophic loses. Among those is grow like crazy, make terrible quality loans and employ extreme leverage. He said that these ingredients would...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (14 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: But Mr. Black and others would have been warning about this for even decades previous to what happened in Ireland. How come, Bank of Ireland, with the huge resources, research capacity, etc., wouldn't be aware of the dangers of this excessive drive for growth?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (14 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Burrows, Mr. Black's implication is that a drive, a greed for profit has led many banks to perdition and also huge remuneration for bank leadership like chairpeople and CEOs. Was greed for profit a factor in the huge drive for growth and in the downfall then of Bank of Ireland?