Results 2,001-2,020 of 4,414 for speaker:Sean Barrett

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: That did not seem to indicate that it was much of a priority. I take it Mr. McWilliams did not meet the people who had the job of ensuring banks were solvent.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: It argued very strongly against the McDowell report. It wanted to regulate the banks. Could Mr. McWilliams see it carrying out that task?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: When we joined the euro, against the advice of Mr. McWilliams and others, could we have regulated the flow of capital to keep it out of property and mortgages?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: What could we have done about commercial property? We have heard evidence that commercial property was even more toxic.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: Mr. McWilliams liked Sweden and Switzerland. I ask him to tell us what they did.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: I would still like to ask Mr. McWilliams about Switzerland.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome Professor McDonough. This is the third member of the Galway troika. Professor John McHale comes in quite a lot and Professor Alan Ahearne does as well. Professor McDonough, on page 8, states, "This is not a question, as some have recommended, of hiring more economists in the Department of Finance". What did he mean by that?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: It was not the IMF, but the Department of Finance, about which Professor McDonough wrote.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: The IMF only paid flying visits. I refer to the staff who were there all the time in the Department of Finance. The evidence we heard from Mr. Wright was that they represented 7% of the total staff complement in the core of Finance, compared to 60% in Canada and 40% in the Netherlands. Why would Professor McDonough keep it at 7%?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: If one retains the number of qualified economists at only 7%, would that not lead to the professor's other problem of light-touch regulation? If one is to regulate a sector, one had better have qualified staff there to do it.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: We had the large capital inflow that Professor McDonough criticised earlier. It happened. One was outvoted, if one had wanted not to join the euro. What would Professor McDonough have done, if he were the Governor of the Central Bank and he saw this significant capital inflow coming into Ireland in 2003? How would he have responded?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: How should banks be regulated in that context?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: In the Irish system what proportion of bank funding does Professor McDonough believe should be in equity?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: Professor Connor stated that we need a modern and practical legal pathway for quick and effective bank resolutions. What would he include in such a pathway?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: The value of the protection that parliaments give to banks was estimated at approximately €300 billion per year in the United States. That would be equivalent to €5 billion here. Should we move towards a system whereby the banks pay us for the insurance of bailing them out?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: Did any bank managers go to Professor Connor to advise him their banks were about to go down the tube because of what was happening?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: Should the auditors have seen this happening? They were in the banks auditing the accounts.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: Professor Connor's estimate is that the banks were worth minus €51 billion before we put €64 billion into them. Have other people made similar estimates? His is the first I have heard.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: The Keynesian stimulus that Professor Connor mentioned in his opening remarks would have required the Irish Government to have run a massive fiscal surplus, which is probably impossible to imagine even now. A huge capital inflow requires the Government to counteract the stimulus by running a surplus.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Feb 2015)

Sean Barrett: Commercial property emerged as a major destabilising sector for all of this capital inflow. We now have rules for residential mortgages. What kind of rules should operate for commercial property given its explosive contribution to instability?