Results 1,061-1,080 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: They didn't have a majority in the board.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: Okay but it was a substantial component.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: So can I just ask you a new-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: Yes. Can I just ask you in your time there, was there any one or two or three board members who were expressing, say, a serious opposition to the general light-touch regulation that would have made a mark on you?
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: Mr. Patterson, could you explain to us the link between the micro-prudential regulation for individual institutions, how that then led to sector analysis and to ... how that fed into macroeconomic analysis for the Central Bank itself?
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: And this found its way to the board then?
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: The boards.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: Okay. And can I therefore take you again to Vol. 2, page 3? Deputy Doherty already referred to this and from a meeting in 2004, April-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: I'm allowed to quote, aren't I?
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: Yes, its-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: Yes. So, let me just rehearse it again that: "X reported under Financial Stability Matters on recent discussions at the boards of the [Central Bank] and [the regulator]".
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: Yes.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: Okay. So, presumably, this is then an analysis of the information that has been fed in from the banks and the regulator looking into the banks. Okay, X then suggested that the Central Bank "had not convinced market participants that there may be "systemic risk" [that's in inverted commas, suggesting that that's the very word that was used] building up in the banking sector" and "indicated...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: And would agree, therefore ... or would you agree as well, Mr. Patterson, that the next sentence "X outlined a work programme including a "roadshow" designed to convince the bank boards of the "rationale to curb lending" no [direct] regulatory action was [recommended]." Would you agree that that is an enormous contrast to the seriousness of what went before? And would you agree that it is,...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: Yes. And let's move on a little bit with that, because we have to try and get ... I would like to try and get, if we can, to where the source of what I suggest to you, and you can come back later, is this shows a paralysis by the Central Bank and regulator in view of the seriousness of what went before. I want to get, or to tease out, what's the source of that inaction, which you've agreed with.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: And then you said yourself ... sorry, the regulator's annual report of 2006, that "[The] principles led approach to regulation is the right model for Ireland [...] It both allows and requires banks to manage themselves." And then, in your opening remarks ... no, your opening written statement to us, on page 3, you said "there was an effort to ensure that rules and regulatory practice did not...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: Yes, but I want to put two or three quotes-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: -----to him because its all of the same theme, Chairman. Mary Burke from the Central Bank gave evidence here, "believing that the authorities did not want a stricter regulation regime for Irish banks because the IFSC could then be seen as an area with less regulation that might be compared to an offshore financial haven". And, Mr. Patterson, you make almost precisely the same point in page...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: Yes. The problem there, Mr. Patterson, is - we've said it to the previous witness - the evidence from the banks is that some of them had engaged in huge cheating at the taxpayers' expense.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (11 Jun 2015)
Joe Higgins: Why should you assume that they would be paragons of virtue?