Results 10,481-10,500 of 15,555 for speaker:Eoghan Murphy

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: Okay, and so again in terms of this culture of ... I suppose robust culture of challenging the Minister on different ideas and different proposals and writing memos, did you ever do this work in relation to what was happening in the property sector and the housing boom and what contribution that was making to the economy?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: Okay. Right, so ... one of the pieces of evidence we've heard about in previous sessions in relation to Morgan Kelly's work and how he published an article on a potential house price bubble in The Irish Timesat the end of 2006, and later published a report on the same theme as part of the ESRI's quarterly bulletin in the summer of 2007. So, when outside people, were, you know, having an...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: So this is written in 2006 and 2007 and you went back to work from the OECD from 1996, is that-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: 2006, okay.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: So you would have given serious consideration to Morgan Kelly's work at the time?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: Okay. And then when we look at things like the pre-budget letters coming in from the Central Bank, I mean, how much consideration would have been given to them? Because in the pre-budget letter from 2000, towards the end of 2000, looking ahead to 2001, it warned of a hard landing. It drew attention to the commercial price rise in property, to the residential price rise in property, to...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: Okay, well, we have it in evidence but you don't recall anyone going back, say, instead to a Central Bank pre-budget letter to look for ... to test against what Morgan Kelly was saying?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: Okay. In the Nyberg report on the banking crisis, he states that there was a general ... in general a pervasive pressure for consensus and conformity of views across institutions and one of the reasons was to "adopt specific policies and accepted practices that later proved unsound". So, in your opinion, was there a pressure in the Department of Finance in the years up to 2006, this...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: Okay. So you didn't feel like it was a culture or political pressure at work within the Department?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: Okay. Can you comment on what changes, if any, occurred with the change in Ministers in 2004 in the workings of the Department?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: But in relation, in terms of practices, preparations for the budgetary process, was there any change in how that went?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: But the Department continued to play the central role it had played up to 2004, after 2004?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: Okay. The final question I wanted to ask was in relation to lessons for the future. You spoke about prudent being not spending all your tax receipts in a given year, so I just wondered what the current thinking is, in relation to when you have a surplus, is it to run a surplus, is it to direct a surplus into some sort of fund like a pension reserve fund, or is it to pay off the debt? What...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: Thank you Chairman and thank you Mr. McCreevy, you are very welcome. I want to go right back if I may just prior to you becoming Minister for Finance. In opposition you expressed a number of reservations about our entry into the euro and just two months before you were made Minister for Finance you said in an interview with Jane Suiter, "It will be interesting to see if you can have...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: Mr. McCreevy-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: Yes, I want to ask you about this though because this was predicted in 1998 that once you fixed the exchange rate mechanism, that there would be a push for a fall in interest rates following which a wall of money would hit the Irish economy. So that was being written about in The Irish Timesin 1998, on the Monday just after you fixed the exchange rate mechanism, so what did you do to prepare...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: But it was predicted.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: But did you foresee the problem coming?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Eoghan Murphy: Okay, just coming back to this idea of preparing for consequences of that decision, and the reduction in interest rates, and what that would mean for the Irish economy, and your time as Minister, not going back to the committee before you were Minister, what were you and your officials doing to prepare the economy for this new money coming in?