Results 6,821-6,840 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes. Ms O'Dea, can I ask you, when you were consumer director, and in the period of the development of the bubble, do you think there was a shortage of people and skills in the banking supervision department at that time and, then as you went on to chief executive in February 2009, what was the situation then? We had in evidence from Mary Burke, for example, that three staff were...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: Who is this now?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: If I may ask you ... a bit earlier than that, in the course of the bubble being blown up, which was quite a feature publicly in the newspapers and certainly you would have been in a central role in the regulator - I mean, you were on the board all that time - was there no alarm bells going off in relation to the amount of lending, the price of homes, the type of speculation, profit...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: Can I refer to the evidence ... core document page 54-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: Vol. 1.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: And it'll come up on your screen there. The bottom half of that page ... this relates to discussions on various committees about staffing and it is 2008 when alarm bells were going off in relation ... and yet there seemed to be a discussion here on staff saving, cutbacks. Can you tell us what's that about?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: Ms O'Dea, at a time when it was clear that far more supervision and staff essentially was needed, was the pressure for the opposite to happen?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: And if you just go to the next page then, Ms O'Dea ... 56 of the same document.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: Remuneration and budget committee and all subcommittees, it relates to the period around 2010, or projections for 2010, 2012: "The complement [of staff] should be augmented by 275-300 staff to ensure appropriate supervision of regulated entities". Quite a significant increase. Did you have any feeling at that time of, you know, the horses were away over the horizon, that it was a pity that...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: Can I ask you in relation then to the period around the bank guarantee, did the Financial Regulator carry out any additional investigation or analysis after the loan book analysis that was conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers into a number of the key banks?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes. Now, you say, when you became acting chief executive officer that a more intrusive approach was being adopted by the Financial Regulator with regard to getting into the banks, getting the information. What was the attitude of the banks to this new approach?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: In page 5 of the written statement that you submitted in advance, the top of the page, you say: My recollection is that the relationship with some banks was somewhat strained ... Sending a full investigative team into Anglo elicited what I believed was a defensive response, and early in the investigation I required the full Anglo board to meet with me. Can you tell us about that?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: How did you respond to that situation? Did you go to the board?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: Did the situation change? Was there more co-operation then?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. Ms O'Dea, on page 7 of your opening statement, second paragraph ... last few sentences, you said: "In the [United States], many changes have been adopted through new legislation and the conversation there is not so much about more intrusive regulation but stronger enforcement action, stronger consumer protection and changes [in] the culture of [the] banks." In relation to all that has...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes. Do you think that there should be legislative changes to provide quite strict sanctions on financial institutions or those who run them, including jail sentences, when society's well-being, the well-being of the majority, can be put at risk by their actions?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: Lastly, Ms O'Dea, you were consumer director, that means that you, your role would have been to stand up for the ordinary person, so to speak, in the whole period of the bubble. Now looking back on it, whose interest do you think was served mainly by the financial institutions over that period of time? Was it the interest of profit-seeking private institutions? Did that predominate over...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: Do you think it's appropriate that profit seeking to that level should prejudice society and people's interests so much that that should be allowed?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Jun 2015)

Joe Higgins: Ms O'Dea, you were supposed to be there to protect the consumer, the ordinary person. Between 1996 and 2006, the price of a home for an ordinary person increased by the equivalent of the average industrial wage each year for ten years. Now, the profiteering and the speculation that was responsible for that situation was driven by massive lending by the banks, including the banks taking...