Results 2,061-2,080 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes, but they are officials who are the key advisers to the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: Was participation of these officials in that type of industry-heavy grouping not a restraining factor on the Regulator, who was also a part of that structure?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: The Governor says on page 109, "The Chair and CEO of the FR participated in several roadshows to promote the IFSC", and the Financial Regulator approach was characterised as being user friendly and presentations were aimed at expanding the export financial services sector.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: In presenting roadshows to the big bankers, the bondholders and those who wanted to make a killing in the Irish property bubble, would a reasonable person not think that the Office of the Financial Regulator is hopelessly compromised as regulator through having this approach?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: It is much more than a wrong impression is it not? Does it not fatally compromise the regulator as being part of the whole thing that is dominated by profit maximisation?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: On page 16, Professor Honohan says, "One additional element deserving of consideration is the suggestion by some commentators that the fact that some banking personages were politically well connected might have been a key factor in discouraging aggressive supervisory intervention". What is his view on that?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: I am not talking about corruption necessarily but what did the people Professor Honohan spoke to in the establishment say in regard to this?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: In regard to saying "Of course it did not influence us", Professor Honohan is talking about leading members of the establishment. The simple wisdom of the late Mandy Rice-Davies is "They would say that, wouldn't they?" They are not going to come out and say: "Yes, in fact we were influenced".

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: Is it not inevitable that the close relationship between-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: Particularly because they all share the same ideology, as I mentioned earlier.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: To sum up, I have been asking about the Irish Financial Services Centre and the push for profit maximisation, which pushes against effective regulation. The associate professor in the school of business at Trinity College, William Kingston, cited Professor Honohan and Regling and Watson in an article. He pointed out that from the mass of evidence they provide, it emerges beyond doubt that...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: Professor Honohan mentioned earlier that banking should be ethical in its conduct. In all the interviews he conducted with the leading players concerning the blowing up of the bubble, did he find any concern for the victims of the bubble - the young generation of working people trying to purchase a home? From 1996 to 2006, the price of a home rose by the equivalent of the average industrial...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: Should the regulators not have been thinking of these unfortunate young working people?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: Not the speculators.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: I remember this period distinctly.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: I was in the Dáil at the time. I was virtually a lone voice in trying to challenge the massive rise in house prices, the level of profits and the speculation that was happening. This massive burden was being put on a young generation. They can agonise now but between, say, 2002 and 2006, they knew about this. Even on that basis nobody said it should have been halted.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mainly to the super profits of the banks and the bondholders.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: The Governor refers on page 107 of his report to measures that could have been taken to stop the bubble. Militating against more decisive and aggressive intervention was as stated by Professor Honohan to be seen to contribute to market disorder. Does it not speak volumes that the financial markets, which were at the centre of this, based on private profit maximisation essentially can hold...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: -----and blackmail society by threatening to take their money elsewhere if they are not allowed to profit at will?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (15 Jan 2015)

Joe Higgins: The Governor then goes on in his report to refer to looking into the future and learning from the mistakes of the past. We are experiencing a terrible housing crisis. Many people cannot afford to buy a home and there is also a shortage of houses. How can the human right to a home ever be vindicated if there is an economic dictatorship dictated by bankers, lenders and large developers?...