Results 7,721-7,740 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. McGann, with respect, I wasn't on the credit committee either but as a lay representative of ordinary people out there, when I read that, I was utterly shocked.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: No, but I'm ... and I would say ... what I'm ... the point I'm making to you is that a layperson out there would see or would raise a question which I'm raising to you that this bespeaks ... or does it bespeak a credit policy that was ... that went out of control?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay, move on for time, Mr. McGann, and at a board meeting on 12 December 2008, it was reported that Mr. Drumm, chief executive, and Willie McAteer, had met with Mr. Hurley, then Governor of the Central Bank, and Mr. Grimes of the Central Bank at which a figure of €3 billion of new capital was acknowledged as being needed. So this was December 2008, a few months after the bank...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: And you ... do ... were you of the view that Anglo was solvent at the time of the guarantee?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. So if I move on then to Vol. 2, page 79, and Deputy O'Donnell has referred already to the bonuses and you as part of the remuneration committee would have been at a ... from a certain date, would have been responsible for part of ... and you described to the Deputy the level of bonus for the chief executive, for example, and, presumably, for the others as justified. How can ... how do...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: -----and performing a very important social function. Would they be entitled or should they be entitled to a bonus of €2 million or €1 million? How do you justify-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. McGann, if I could ask, with the great respect to yourself as well, no postman and woman cost the taxpayers of this country €32 billion, which the management of Anglo Irish Bank did. How can you justify those levels of bonus for activities that led to, by any standards, a catastrophe for the taxpayer and the social situation of many people in this country?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. Mr. McGann, you are, I would say, by consent among your peers one of the leading capitalists of this generation with, you know, serious position in industry and so forth and you're an experienced person in business for a considerable amount of time. Bearing that in mind, can I ask you are you aware of the evidence of Professor William Black, a former US regulator, to this inquiry?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes, and I want to put to you some of Mr. Black's evidence. He says there is a recipe which banks follow "which produces the worst losses, is most likely to cause hyperinflated bubbles [...] to cause catastrophic individual losses and future crises" and the recipe he says is a bank that grows like crazy, make terrible-quality loans, employ extreme leverage while setting aside no meaningful...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: But, Mr. McGann, with respect, how can you describe it as a one-in-100-year event? Professor Morgan Kelly of UCD published a study of, I think it's maybe two dozen countries over the previous, maybe, 30 years that had a property development-housing bubble, and each one, without exception, crashed. And you, I've no doubt, would have been familiar with the Scandinavian situation of the late...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Was it the case not that all those distinguished banks internationally that you mentioned were all at the same game, the same methods, as Anglo? You are aware of the debate about the financialisation of the international economy and the banks and speculative lending etc., came to have such a preponderance. So, was it surprising that those banks met a similar fate?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay, thank you, Mr. McGann.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. McGann, just to ... trying to get clarity on this ... in the pre-golf outing meeting in Mr. Drury's house, it was yourself, the Taoiseach, Mr. Cowen, Mr. Drury and anybody else?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Seán FitzPatrick and?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Alan Gray. And Mr. FitzPatrick was the chairman of Anglo Irish Bank, you were a director or you were a member of the board-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes, but you were a member of the board of Anglo.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Drury was a member of the board or had been a member of the-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: -----board. And how does that meeting relate to the dinner that took place later? Because the impression that many of us have is that-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: I mean, was it the same discussion that started earlier in the morning-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes.