Results 941-960 of 4,414 for speaker:Sean Barrett

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (15 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Thank you very much. Thank you, Chairman.

Seanad: Order of Business (14 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: I express some concern about No. 4 on the Order Paper. I acknowledge that the Leader is less than enthusiastic about these motions in which we seek to curtail the time in which the President can consider legislation. This relates to low pay and I do not know what the urgency is. The President had a distinguished academic record in dealing with income distribution and poverty matters when...

Seanad: Order of Business (14 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Order of Business (14 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Hear, hear.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (9 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Thank you and welcome, Ms Herbert. You say on page 4 of your document - and it echoes some of the discussion you had with Deputy O'Donnell just now - where you talk, in the fourth paragraph of your statement, about your relationship with the departmental officials, "From the knowledge I subsequently acquired it is clear that many of these advisers were hampered in their analysis of the...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (9 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: And the banks being fundamentally sound, you know, was there any consciousness that you came across that, you know, extending credit by 25% a year ends in some kind of well a crash rather than a soft landing, I suppose?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (9 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Can you recall ... Mr. Cardiff, in his evidence, referred to 17 September, an update provided to Minister Lenihan ... to the Minister for Finance, noted that the Irish Stock Exchange had lost almost half its value since the early part of 2007, and that the main Irish banks had lost more than 70% of their value since their peak, and AIB and Anglo lost 15% and 20%, respectively, in just two...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (9 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Yes, I think the deposit guarantee was on the 20th, wasn't it, just a few days later? In the light of what we now have ... constructive ambiguity - does that make it impossible to have a media strategy?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (9 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Was it a stronger policy other than hands-off, sort of, parts of those discussions? Either you're afraid of markets and say, "Don't frighten the horses", or we say, "These are our rules on loans-to-deposits and loans-to-value these are rules of sectoral concentration. We're putting them there and whether the market likes them or not, tough luck." Were we afraid of markets more or less in...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (9 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Thank you. Now in your witness statement, you say that it was also made clear by the ECB that Ireland and any other eurozone country with banking difficulties should do whatever was required to save their own banks. When did you become aware of that and did you follow up with the Department of Foreign Affairs to advance our position or, I suppose, try to "re-Europeanise" the banking crisis...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (9 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: You state that on page 11, "By and large, we were left to fend for ourselves by the EU." But on page 10, you say, "As an effective lender of last resort, the ECB played a key and very powerful role in our banking crisis."

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (9 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Well, that brings up the prospect that that ELA funding was, if you like, the gateway drug to irresponsible banking; that this money was there and they used it to a degree that annoyed Mr. Trichet, who then bounced us into the guarantee.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (9 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: That banks had this source of finance which wasn't very well publicised and became addicted to it, rather than reforming banks.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (9 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Your statement on page 7, you say that Anglo, "There was no question of allowing a bank with a deposit base of €11.6bn from its Irish clients alone, to close its doors." Wasn't the counter-argument that Anglo had only a couple of hundred customers and, in fact, it was all in property and a lot of the property wasn't even in the country. So that, you know, was there a case for either...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (9 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: The ... the communications, Mr. Cardiff referred to those as well, if I could bring you back to that, the comment on the decision to enter the bailout discussions in November 2010, "the communication at Ministerial level over the weekend had not been clear enough to prevent them walking into trouble". How did you try to have the harmonised message across the Government on the bailout...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (9 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Is that inherent in an incorporeal Cabinet meeting, that the normal Cabinet discussions and your Minister discussing with other Ministers and hearing their views, is replaced by a phone call?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (9 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Is it inherent that you're going to have communications difficulties if we don't have full Cabinet meetings?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (9 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Yes.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (9 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Was this the only occasion, in your time, that those incorporeal Cabinet meetings were held or were there other examples?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (9 Jul 2015)

Sean Barrett: Yes.