Results 2,161-2,180 of 4,414 for speaker:Sean Barrett

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (21 Jan 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome Professor Lane, a long-standing colleague of mine. The italicised part of his paper on page 8 reads: "The capacity of the euro area to respond to such a financial crisis is as yet untested." He warned of that in 2006. Is that not right?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (21 Jan 2015)

Sean Barrett: He was one of the people who saw this happening. As he knows, people like Professor Barry Eichengreen saw the euro as being designed for France, Germany and some northern European countries. He actually said that he was quite surprised that "Ireland, Spain, and other countries at the periphery of the European Union were among the founding members of the euro area". In the scenario that...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (21 Jan 2015)

Sean Barrett: As we plot the future, have we something to learn from Canada, for example?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (21 Jan 2015)

Sean Barrett: Some commentators seem to think that Europe will still not meet the Basel III standards whereas Canada, Australia and Singapore will. Would that concern Professor Lane, that we might do all of this all over again?

Seanad: HSE National Service Plan 2015: Statements (20 Jan 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister. When first I came to the House the statistics documents used to be circulated. May I suggest that this statistics document should be circulated to Members because it contains a great deal of good news in spite of the statements that have been made earlier. Let us take the example of statistics for 2013. In 2011 the share of gross national income spent on the health...

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Jan 2015)

Sean Barrett: I second what Senator Zappone said about the conference held yesterday in Dublin Castle. The Minister, Deputy Noonan, expressed serious concerns that we are creating in Europe a dangerous political vacuum as a result of the economic policies being pursued from Brussels and Frankfurt. I hope that after the elections in Greece, some of those people might stand up and say they made a mistake...

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Jan 2015)

Sean Barrett: What about the property rights of people other than developers, bankers and so on? What about the property rights of workers? I share Senator Conway's concern about the costs of the banking inquiry on which I have been happy to serve. The lawyers are on €264 an hour and that amounts to €528,000 a year. These are costs which Senator Conway has rightly condemned and on which...

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Jan 2015)

Sean Barrett: I congratulate the new Canadian ambassador to Ireland, Mr. Kevin Vickers, who has Cork ancestors and about whom the Speakers of both Houses of Parliament in Canada wrote to thank us. I have copied those letters to the Leader and to the Cathaoirleach. They are grateful for our interest when Mr. Vickers defended the Canadian Parliament against those who invaded it on 22 October. I am sure he...

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

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Governor of the Central Bank, my former colleague in Trinity College Dublin, TCD, and I thank him for his report and presentation. What the Governor refers to as the window dressing is when there were back-to-back deposit transactions between a subsidiary of Irish Life and Permanent and Anglo Irish Bank for €7 billion to make Anglo Irish Bank's books look better. Did...

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

Sean Barrett: It is a quote from the Governor; he wrote that. It is in order-----

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

Sean Barrett: I am trying to inquire about €7 billion. It was passed between Irish Life and Permanent and Anglo Irish Bank. Was this sanctioned by the Central Bank?

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

Sean Barrett: Professor Honohan states on page 42, "Though few would now defend the institutional structure invented for the organisation in 2003...". Was this not the organisational structure the Central Bank wanted? Stephen Kinsella has written on how the McDowell report suggested a completely new organisation outside and independent of the Central Bank and how the Central Bank raised hell on high...

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

Sean Barrett: Professor Honohan shows on page 64 that having lobbied so hard the Central Bank devoted remarkably few resources to this task, which it did not want to be carried out independently, as per the McDowell report. The Central Bank had two people for AIB and Irish Life, three for Bank of Ireland and Anglo Irish Bank and only 15 people in all. There are approximately 1,200 staff in the Central...

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

Sean Barrett: It was also extremely expensive. Professor Honohan's report has shown that our bank supervision was costing twice as much, in respect of capital, as what it was costing in Germany. How did so little supervision cost so much money relative to Germany?

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

Sean Barrett: Another finding on page 73 was that the supervision being carried out was pretty ineffectual. Let us consider case studies Nos. 1 and 2. The first was in August 2000. The Central Bank found that a bank had failings at every level from the chief executive and board to the staff at the desk but nothing happened for eight years. Why did the Central Bank want these powers when it was...

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

Sean Barrett: On page 22 Professor Honohan states that entry to economic and monetary union really triggered the housing price surge. Did the Central Bank prepare papers for Government on joining the EMU, in particular when the United Kingdom, Sweden and Denmark decided not to join? Was this seen as a risk to banking in Ireland?

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

Sean Barrett: In the paper on stress tests to which Deputy O'Donnell referred, Professor Honohan stated that the 2006 stress test was virtually meaningless. He expressed the hope that the Regulator did not take the very favourable results of this "bottom-up" self-test too seriously. When the people in this Parliament hear that something has passed a stress test it is important for us that this should...

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

Sean Barrett: Professor Honohan mentioned, when one gets to the crisis period, that the Central Bank seemed to drop back in its role. Was there some kind of breakdown in communications when the Department of Finance decided to take over? A communication on the night of the rescue to the Governor was not replied to until 18 October. Was the Central Bank becoming marginalised at that time? I think...

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

Sean Barrett: On page 151 of the report Professor Honohan examined what happened to the bottom half of the income distribution because of the guarantee. He says that the guarantee protects the less well-off, not directly by covering their bank deposits, if any, but by underpinning the functioning of the economy to provide employment and generate the tax revenue needed to pay for public services, and...

Seanad: Water Services Bill 2014: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: We have not reformed defects in the permanent government which is why we could repeat all the mistakes again. The Irish Water crisis is this Government's issue in the way that the banking crisis was the issue for the previous Government. This Government has decided to hang its hat on that appalling edifice as the previous Government was codded by bankers. I ask the Minister of State to...