Results 1,901-1,920 of 4,414 for speaker:Sean Barrett

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: I thank Mr. Mulhall and Mr. Mulligan.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: Dr. Mercille is very welcome. According to an earlier article he wrote, only two of the journalists who wrote about the crash in Ireland were qualified in economics. Was this part of Dr. Mercille's studies or have I mistaken him for a different author?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: Does the lack of training about which Dr. Mercille has spoken not leave them hugely vulnerable to the PR sector? Not knowing the stuff they reproduce the PR handouts after lunch, like Dr. Mercille said in an earlier example.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: In his studies of the articles, did Dr. Mercille ever come across any article which stated house prices were lower which was really good news?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: I am asking whether in all of his studies in this period did anybody say low house prices means they are more affordable which is good news?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: Is there a danger that we are taking this topic too seriously? If, on the advice of a racing correspondent, I continuously back slow horses do I blame him or her, the media or myself for not absorbing information and deciding to go for faster horses? Should I decide correspondent Bloggs is unreliable in my investment policies with regard to going to Leopardstown?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: On page 6 Dr. Mercille criticises real estate investment trusts, REITs. They were also heavily criticised in the Seanad debate on the Finance Bill. What would Dr. Mercille do about them?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: Dr. Mercille started his career in Magill, and several times during these hearings we have examined Canada as an example of a country which did not have a banking crisis. It also seems it did not have a public finance crisis. Are there any lessons from Dr. Mercille's studies in Magilland watching this environment?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome Mr. Browne. Did Mr. Browne ever come across in his work - because there are stories on this that have reached the committee - a fast track, certainly by two building societies, and perhaps banks, towards mortgages for journalists?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: The section that Mr. Browne has on page 5 states, "Journalists who continued to feel that they should be doing hard-hitting, critical scrutiny of powerful institutions felt disempowered from doing so." Is that not just life? In all fields of activity one must have courage, one must have convictions, one will encounter obstacles. I know it is a wrong analogy but let us say that Kerry...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: I would prefer Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who are also among Mr. Browne’s heroes. Mr. Browne referred to the capacity of the public relations, PR, officers to give and withhold information that hard-pressed journalists require to do their work. He also referred to the growth of PR to being four times the number of journalists in the United States. I recall Mr....

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: Regarding the lunchtime booze incident that Mr. Browne described, are there not ethical rules that state a journalist should get the story on the new president of the Stock Exchange and not waste time eating and drinking with these guys?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: I am glad Woodward and Bernstein did not want to have lunch with Richard Nixon and just did the story.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome our friends from Cork and thank them for making the journey. In Mr. Murphy's presentation, he referred to the splendid Cork Savings Bank building. Was it part of the group for a while? Was it to be the corporate headquarters?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: Is it still in the group?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: Mr. Vaughan referred to Mr. Maurice O'Connell as a contrarian. Mr. O'Connell wrote in the Irish Examinerin 1999 that banks were lending too much money too easily. How did Mr. Vaughan present the story?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: It struck me as strange that the Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland was saying that. I would be analogous to a hospital consultant saying that too many of his or her patients were seriously ill or dying. It was a story not just because of what he said but because of who he was. Did Mr. Vaughan question him on it?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: I thank the editor.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: Did the article by the redoubtable Mr. Ryle Dwyer appear on its normal page, or did Mr. Vaughan put it on the business page so that the economics and business people would see the contrarian view?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (25 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: Did people in Cork communicate to the Irish Examinera feeling we have got from around the country - that too many banking functions had been relocated to Dublin, that managers in important towns and cities throughout Ireland were replaced by a speaking clock in the Dublin headquarters and that this was part of the problem in the property sector?