Results 9,201-9,220 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: -----lowly opposition people. Our research person in the Labour Party met with Finance officials and the arrangements they made was that they gave answers to specific questions that we put in a budgetary context.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: The Department of Finance published documentation. They didn't make any specific documentation available to the Labour Party other than through the head of research who was himself an economist but I did actually, from time to time, meet with officials from the NTMA and from the Central Bank and they gave opinions. And in relation to the Central Bank, I raised specifically with the then...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: There were contacts between the head of the Labour Party's research and principal adviser to the then party leader, with the Department of Finance on occasion and where we wanted figures verified, on occasion the Department of Finance was willing to do that, but the second-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: I can't give you that documentation but when ... as a member of the committee, the senior officials of the Department of Finance attended various committees and were questioned by members of the committee, including myself, as were senior officials of the other key publically ... public financial institutions like the Central Bank. My contact with the Department of Finance was in those...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: No, we did ... and I think everybody fervently hoped there might be a soft landing, but we were very sceptical and I certainly went, in particular, to the Central Bank and to the NTMA. But the Department of Finance, if I may say, made their presence available to Members of the Oireachtas via committees. They were not, to my knowledge, available on other occasions, other than when they came...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: Three minutes?
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: No, Senator, they weren't made available. In fact, any reference I've seen to those indicate that they were carried out in considerable secrecy because there was also a desire at the time, and, in fact, people often talked, particularly from the Government parties, talked about people wearing green jerseys. There was also as there is now, but more so then, a great deal of inhibition in...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: I have to say I was very, very concerned. There was a lot of, if you like, commentary of a brief kind in the media. There was a lot of conversations, journalists were asking questions. I was also using my position as an Opposition spokesperson to, as I said, talk about, for instance, reining in the tax-driven speculation in land because ... people often talk about the huge rise in...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: My biggest concern at that time was in relation to Anglo Irish Bank because this ... I can't just stress ... this was a small specialist bank for developers who are a certain percentage of the activity in a country. There were other customers of the bank-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: -----and it had become-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: Historically, it had become-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: Historically, it had become in the stats bigger than either the Bank of Ireland or the Allied Irish Bank.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: And I had said that as well in the previous September when the Northern Rock crisis broke in the United Kingdom-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: I wanted the Government to have a much stronger system of regulation and oversight and I wanted the tax breaks and so on that I referred to, which I believed were driving the bubble in credit and lending to the commercial sector. I wanted that addressed and I felt that if they were taken down, well then, there was a better possibility of what was described as the soft landing. Also, from...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: The only person who really asked for my advice was Brian Lenihan, the late Brian Lenihan, who was a constituency colleague of mine.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: No.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: Because they basically had an approach that anyone who was, in any way, critical of what was happening, even in broad general terms ... there was this language around the green jersey and supporting the narrative. And also, I have to say on my own part, I was extremely cautious about any statements which, in any way, would cause more damage. So, I think on the part of almost everybody in...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: I think Mr. Lenihan spoke to many Members of the Dáil and Seanad on a frequent basis. We were also constituency colleagues and we attended quite a number of functions where, in fact, we spent time together.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: I said he needed to get very good advice and expertise and I advised him strongly to look for expert advice in relation to the difficulties that seemed to be, if you like ... you know, it was a period of considerable financial uncertainty and more and more information was coming out in relation to specific problems in Ireland and I felt that if he had more expert advice, he might, in fact, be...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)
Joan Burton: Yes.