Results 2,041-2,060 of 4,168 for speaker:Susan O'Keeffe

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

Susan O'Keeffe: I'm just trying to see whether the banks and the auctioneers were talking to each other about trying to move property, about trying to sell land and sites. Were they working together informally?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: How many complaints, if any, were made to your organisation in that time period about flipping, about auctioneers being involved in flipping properties on?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Yes.

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

Susan O'Keeffe: All through that time as well?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: I'd like if I might to read from a book called Breakfast with Anglo, which you may be familiar with, written by Simon Kelly, who was himself a developer, and he says simply:Banks believe valuers which always amazes me because valuers don't buy buildings. Valuation figures could be swapped for real money less a discount of about 20%. We'd be able to borrow 80% of whatever figure I could...

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

Susan O'Keeffe: But he goes on to describe how he, in one particular circumstance, and it's obviously had happened before, that he sat down and had a great conversation several conversations with the valuer and they haggled about how they could arrive at the valuation. And he explains how, you know, if you change the ERV and if you looked at the ... you could, it was money in the bank for him. And he's ......

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Yes, but there was discussion. It wasn't just that the valuer did it in a silo, not liaising with the developer.

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Thank you.

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Thank you, Chair. If I could just follow up on that thought, Mr. Fitzpatrick. I mean, you can imagine that it's quite difficult for members of the public at large who, perhaps, have never had an auditor, don't know an auditor, and don't know what an audit actually might mean, but in their heads, believe that it's something that protects, and is something that ... if something's been...

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Yes.

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

Susan O'Keeffe: It couldn't ... they couldn't have been contemplated?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Mr. Cullen, could I ask for your view on that also, please, on that whole idea that it's very difficult for people to understand how a bank ends up in that state and yet its audited accounts are by the book and they're okay?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: That's okay?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Mr. Fitzpatrick, do you believe your audit team ... the audit team that was in place at that time had sufficient expertise and experience in banking and property, particularly? Did you, for example, have to bring in auditors from anywhere else or did you have sufficient ... because obviously you can have auditors that then become specialists in particular sectors, so given what was going on...

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Did your team ... and I assume there would have been a team of people assembled over a period of time that would have been some core people and some would have come and gone ...did you use, sort of, junior trainee auditors-accountants as part of your team?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: But I am correct in understanding what you've said, both to me and to my colleague, that you are broadly happy and satisfied that Deloitte did a good job as auditor to Ulster Bank in Ireland at this time?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Looking back, as you must have done, do you have any thought at all that Ulster Bank may have, at any time, withheld information from you and your team from your firm, in any way, shape or form?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Okay. Deputy McGrath raised just the issue of what you might have done for your non-audit fee, and I'm wondering whether or not you ... you gave some responses and I'm wondering whether or not you were ever involved in setting up any kind of offshore vehicles for Ulster Bank, or any sort of favourable taxation vehicles for the bank?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: We are aware from our engagement with Ulster Bank that obviously the Financial Regulator brought concerns, its concerns to Ulster Bank on a number of occasions and I'll refer to them if need be but just in short would that have been something you would have been aware of or would that have been relevant to you or would you not have come across that level of engagement?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Because we had quite a lot of engagement with the bank in relation to that and some of the observations that the witnesses said, was that they were concerned at the time that the Financial Regulator they had wished that there might have been more on the ground conversation rather then the Financial Regulator going away and writing back to them. But Mr. McCarthy said on ... it's on page 77 of...