Results 2,941-2,960 of 4,168 for speaker:Susan O'Keeffe

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

Susan O'Keeffe: I suppose it is easy to buy into the narrative if one is actually making money out of it. In light of the existence of global banking corporations, and the fact that banks are bigger and do more than they used to do 100 years ago, is there now an imbalance of power between a central bank and the banking corporations, the centres of profit? Is that a serious problem for any country,...

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Do they effectively have more power than the Central Bank because they are profit centres and because of the way they operate? Perhaps "clout" is a better word than "power".

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

Susan O'Keeffe: However, the regulation failed.

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

Susan O'Keeffe: In fairness, some of the evidence that others have stated-----

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Others have observed that regulation failed so I am saying-----

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

Susan O'Keeffe: There is a suggestion there that the Central Bank could not act by itself and that there was a political inclination.

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Professor Lane says that at a microeconomic level the property boom could have been countered through reforms that reduced the tax incentives offered to developers and householders. He says that on page 6. Mr. Klaus Regling and Mr. Max Watson report that by 2005, according to the OECD, the cost of tax expenditure had become larger than the remaining income tax receipts. It appears to be...

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Can I finish by asking about offshore centres, to which Professor Lane referred? Clearly, financial products have changed over the years. I believe Professor Lane said they become more "innovative". Equally, offshore banking and that whole system has become more innovative. Is there any evidence that financial institutions themselves used those offshore centres to funnel their own profit...

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Did Professor Honohan interview or speak to former staff members who had left the Central Bank by the time he carried out his investigations?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Did he speak to anybody at the ECB or on the council of the ECB?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Why was that?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: If he was to use a word to describe the relationship between the Department of Finance and the Central Bank over the years, would he say "close" was a reasonable one to use? I mean close in all its senses.

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

Susan O'Keeffe: How is it that in his own report there was little discussion or examination of the role of the Department of Finance?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: I know about Wright. In the interests of the public and all of that, Professor Honohan is saying that was not part of his remit.

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

Susan O'Keeffe: It seems odd, given the close relationship that would have existed, that through the whole report I get the sense that it is just about where the building of the Central Bank ended. It does not feel like a joined up piece of thinking. That seemed odd to me when I read it.

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Between 2004 and 2006, which Professor Honohan regards as the crunch time when things started to unravel, if regulation had occurred at that stage perhaps things might have changed. It seems to me that at the very time when banks became more aggressive in selling loans and credit became cheaper and more plentiful, regulation became less efficient and there was less interference or...

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

Susan O'Keeffe: In other words, we had a failing regulatory system for quite some time.

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

Susan O'Keeffe: It is repeatedly stated that nobody saw that it was a solvency crisis. That cannot be because everyone was stupid or not paying attention. What role did the banks and their advisers play in concealing their own solvency problems? How did that contribute?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Nobody saw the solvency crisis. That is extraordinary. What role might the banks have played in that?

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

Susan O'Keeffe: Page 7 of the report states that it would have been known in the Financial Regulator's office that intrusive demands from line staff could be and were set aside after direct representations were made to senior regulators. That is a very serious statement. Were those representations in the form of what we would describe as posh dinners, golf outings and brown envelopes, followed up by the...