Results 7,621-7,640 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Dukes, just in relation to what you said were aggressive cuts to bondholders that you tried to inflict. Which authorities ... was it national or European were reluctant?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: As you know, Mr. Dukes, the whole question of haircuts to bondholders or burning bondholders, so-called, they have been quite a controversial one ... just with the benefit of what you've seen in Anglo would you have a comment on the ... that general issue since the bank guarantee? Do you think that there were opportunities for much more severe haircuts to bondholders rather than taxing the...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: If you had your own way?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. And, Mr. Dukes, you were public interest director when Anglo was nationalised in January of 2008. What was the total loan book at that time, can you remember?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. So then, €33.9 billion was transferred to NAMA. I think that's the correct figure.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: So, leaving about €40 billion with Anglo. Would that be correct?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. What was the ... can you say that there was a profile of the customers that remained with Anglo at that stage? I mean, the big developers had gone. What was the general profile of those who remained?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes And you both then spoke about, you know, various dates that had been set for the wind-down of the bank - 2020 perhaps and then 2016. Was it at any stage considered whether there was the possibility of turning this bank around and making a good bank of it?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: Right.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. Did you believe that it was possible, Mr. Aynsley, to take the bank forward on a different basis?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: Right, okay.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. Mr. Dukes, you note in your statement that one of the board's urgent key tasks was the identification of a series of legacy issues. Could you, please, provide an insight into the legacy issues identified in the context of lending and recovery policies and risk assessment and appetite?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. Gentlemen, the ... you were under pressure from the euro system to sell off the assets so the banks had money to pay back to the ECB as I understand it. Did you feel you were under political pressure from the State or from the Government for any political reasons to advance sales more quickly?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (30 Jul 2015)

Joe Higgins: And, lastly, Mr. Dukes, this is to yourself. The appropriateness of the relationships between the Government, the Oireachtas, the banking sector and the property sector and in your written statement you say, "This issue has been a rich source of modern mythology." Considering the history of tribunals which have shown relationships between political parties, politicians, developers and then...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Fingleton, your auditors, KPMG, did a due diligence report, which came to be known as Project Harmony, in 2007. And it found a number of issues regarding the concentration of loans in the higher-risk development sector - or what the report calls the "speculative property investment" - namely: that 41% of total commercial lending was, in this sector, €3.2 billion; that there was a...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: And you yourself had no concern that this very high concentration in speculative development could come crashing down in the event of, you know, property prices falling?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. Mr. Fingleton, the chief executive of NAMA, Mr. McDonagh, said as a comment on the covered banks generally, including Irish Nationwide, "the banks consider[ed] property lending to be almost a one-way bet, notwithstanding the well-established cyclical behaviour of property markets". And the chairman of NAMA, Mr. Daly, on the same lines, said, "the banks were taking the type of risk...