Results 1,941-1,960 of 4,414 for speaker:Sean Barrett

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (12 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: The Kenny report states the President, when asked to sign the Bill, should refer it to the Supreme Court under Article 26 of the Constitution. In fact, Dr. Elaine Byrne records that the secretary in the President's office was quite cross about this. Was it an own goal by Mr. Justice Kenny? I have never seen a report stating that if one is worried that what is being recommended is...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (12 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: I think it arose first on the corner of Hume Street and then in a case near Swords, but how did the State come to be on the hook when planning permission was refused? I think €1.9 million was paid in 1989 because planning permission had been refused. That meant the officials in the council had to undertake the rezoning which Mr. McDonald strongly and rightly criticised. I am trying...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (12 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: I refer to development levies. Do they make local authorities which are supposed to be adjudicating on this issue in the wider national interest partners in allowing projects to go ahead? I am thinking of the case of Meath County Council in rezoning parts of Carton which were turned down by An Bord Pleanála. The incentive for the council and the officials was that...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome Professor Farrell. Regarding an incorporeal Cabinet meeting, apart from being an oxymoron, is it not anathema in a democracy that a crucial decision was made at that kind of meeting?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: Deputy Eoghan Murphy raised the Whip system. I think the British army would be in Syria now because the Prime Minister wanted to look for some weapons and so on but enough people in the Tory party made that impossible. Could we have a percentage of days off from the Whip system? Would that be one of the ways we could develop the kind of system Professor Farrell has been advocating?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: Is it usual in the parliaments that Professor Farrell studied that Ministers come in with a coterie of civil servants who whisper in their ears or pass them notes? I do not see that in Westminster, for example.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: Is parliament stronger in the public mind than sometimes around here or in the media? I have in mind the attempt to abolish the Seanad, for which the vast majority of Deputies voted and the majority of the Senators voted for its abolition. The opinion polls showed that it would be abolished but in fact the people decided it would not be abolished. Are there secret parliamentarians in the...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: In regard to committees, we had a case where a person did not want to appear as a witness and the majority of the committee summoned him to appear and he did so. In terms of people's reluctance to appear as a witness, there is some case law which the professor might discuss afterwards. He said the Government actively supported the market over an extended period against the fairly weak but...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: I refer to the absence of individual responsibility in Irish public life in that people do not resign, they do not take responsibility for what they do and they hide behind systems failures. Have political scientists written on that aspect?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: I thank the professor.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome Professor Hardiman. I am interested in her quote from Mary Halton's thesis regarding the conduct of non-executive directors in Canada, who held meetings without management being present "as the primary tool through which to test ideas and build support among colleagues. This arguably helped to avoid excessive deference on the part of non-executive directors and to strengthen...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: Unfortunately, we do not like whistleblowers. Is it not the case that there is evidence that the careers of whistleblowers are ruined by their actions? In many cases organisations never institute reforms, rather they just gang up on the contrarians involved.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: The deference we are discussing applies, particularly in this Parliament, to European matters. Professor Hardiman provided additional information to us on EMU and what it means. Did we understand what we were doing when we joined EMU? Were there contrarians who spoke up when Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom did not join? If so, did anyone think to follow their advice and reconsider...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: The new, ethical and open complex that the professor has described to us sounds most interesting. The "big four" accountancy firms dominate accounting at the banks. With regulatory capture, the way regulatory institutions are set up and even finding that one bank gave €41 million in loans to its own directors, how does one promote the much better system described by the professor?...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: I thank the Chairman and welcome Professor Honohan.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: The Governor used, I thought interchangeably, the terms "allowed to fail" and "to nationalise". I thought they were completely different things. How did that happen on the night?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: The terms were used interchangeably. There are empty shops in every town in Ireland. They were allowed to fail. Why were the terms "allowed to fail" and "nationalise" used interchangeably in this particular example?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: Page 2 of the Governor's letter for today's meeting states: "In the actual case the Government had no information at hand indicating that any of the banks were about to experience losses far in excess of their capital reserves." Mr. Carswell who was with us yesterday states in his book that the chairman of AIB said on the night that Anglo and Irish Nationwide Building Society should be taken...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: If an eminent banker was telling them that he thought the two banks were broken beyond repair, was that not information people there on 29 September 2008 had in their possession? They could have rejected it.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Sean Barrett: In his report Professor Honohan refers to one of the bodies concerned and the fact that it had a track record, dating back to 2000, of unsatisfactory correspondence and so on between it and the regulator. When he says there was nothing else that could have been done on the night, it was the job of the people at the meeting to watch the situation evolve, over eight years in one of the cases...