Results 221-240 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: It was an inevitable consequence of this method of work.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: And Mr. Fitzgerald, was this partly what left us, for example, with a multitude of ghost estates? That the initial lending had been made to buy but then the crisis came and no more-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes. But did it not occur to you, Mr. Fitzgerald, an experienced financial person who keeps an eye on world affairs, that booms like this inevitably slump and crash, so it's a musical chair but at some stage the music will stop?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Would that not have occurred to you in the course of the 2000s?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: My very last question, Mr. Fitzgerald for the time, I beg your pardon, is this. Again, to say, to quote you, "[A]s I understand it, a substantial portion of the [total] new net lending figure of €6.5 billion in 2008 was lent in the first half of 2008 when funding the existing balance sheet was becoming increasingly more difficult". Mr. Fitzgerald, was that reckless trading to dole...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. Thank you.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes, Mr. McGann, if I can refer to Vol. 1, page 68, of the core booklet.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes, and this relates, Mr. McGann, to a letter from the Financial Regulator to the chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank, dated 27 June 2007. And in that, 30 issues are raised by the Financial Regulator with the chief executive, and what would be considered as quite significant issues, particularly perhaps the extent of lending for land development, etc., and another significant issue, the...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: And were the issues raised in this letter brought to the board by the chief executive?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: You are aware of the letter now, I take it.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Would you agree that some of the issues are of very high significance?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Would you say, Mr. McGann, it should have been imperative that these issues were brought to the board?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: And why weren't they, do you think?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. Now, I'd like to move on then to Vol. 1, page 57. This relates to exceptions to group lending policy, and we see there ... this concerns the month of July, but I'm going to leave July out of it actually, Mr. McGann, because the previous five months - February to June - are given, and this is commercial lending. The exceptions to the lending policy and limits in February '08 was 26%;...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: But would you say, Mr. McGann, that they might have been indicative of problems with the control environment inside Anglo, or whether the ... an independent credit control function was exerting itself sufficiently on the lending side, for example?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Well, can I take you ... us then, Mr. McGann, to Vol. 2, page 3? This is a report from NAMA. If I can take you to the bottom of that page:Of the 1,731 cases reviewed at client level, the number found to have represented an exception to credit policy was 1,073 or 62% of clients. The aggregate value of the exceptions identified was €31.97 billion or 92% of the value of the Book which...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Well, I must invite you to say more, Mr. McGann, because it doesn't matter when it was calculated. I take it that NAMA examined the loans and found that 92% of the value of the book which was transferred to NAMA - almost €32 billion - was money that was lent by way of exception to the official credit policy of Anglo Irish Bank and the point ... I would ask you again: do you find that...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. McGann, with respect, I wasn't on the credit committee either but as a lay representative of ordinary people out there, when I read that, I was utterly shocked.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: No, but I'm ... and I would say ... what I'm ... the point I'm making to you is that a layperson out there would see or would raise a question which I'm raising to you that this bespeaks ... or does it bespeak a credit policy that was ... that went out of control?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (3 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay, move on for time, Mr. McGann, and at a board meeting on 12 December 2008, it was reported that Mr. Drumm, chief executive, and Willie McAteer, had met with Mr. Hurley, then Governor of the Central Bank, and Mr. Grimes of the Central Bank at which a figure of €3 billion of new capital was acknowledged as being needed. So this was December 2008, a few months after the bank...