Results 281-300 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

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

Joe Higgins: You know there ... many people feel we have a housing crisis now. We see evidence of it every day. The ... would you accept in any way that the buy-to-let policy of organisations such as yourself has created a part of that crisis with the foreclosing on people who can't afford, therefore, tenants being put out, etc.?

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

Joe Higgins: Yes, well, just the effect of the policies of the bubble period being partly responsible for the housing crisis today.

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

Joe Higgins: Okay.

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

Joe Higgins: Mr. Went, to conclude, I'm to ask you this just very briefly.

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

Joe Higgins: A letter from Peter Fitzpatrick who was your finance director ... group finance director-----

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

Joe Higgins: It's on page 11, and he's complaining about the Bank of Ireland saying to other bankers etc. in ... in ... towards the end of 2007 that the issue for all Irish banks was one of survival and that Bank of Ireland is creating massive negative sentiment. Do you have any comment in relation to that, what Mr. Fitzpatrick said?

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

Joe Higgins: Okay.

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

Joe Higgins: Can I raise the point, Mr. Went, that the home, which is a basic human necessity should not be the subject of profiteering and speculation-----

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

Joe Higgins: -----as it became during the bubble?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Fingleton, your auditors, KPMG, did a due diligence report, which came to be known as Project Harmony, in 2007. And it found a number of issues regarding the concentration of loans in the higher-risk development sector - or what the report calls the "speculative property investment" - namely: that 41% of total commercial lending was, in this sector, €3.2 billion; that there was a...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: And you yourself had no concern that this very high concentration in speculative development could come crashing down in the event of, you know, property prices falling?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. Mr. Fingleton, the chief executive of NAMA, Mr. McDonagh, said as a comment on the covered banks generally, including Irish Nationwide, "the banks consider[ed] property lending to be almost a one-way bet, notwithstanding the well-established cyclical behaviour of property markets". And the chairman of NAMA, Mr. Daly, on the same lines, said, "the banks were taking the type of risk...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: The question is, Mr. Fingleton-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: -----to sum it up briefly, that certain-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Many observers, including Nyberg, said that the methods of banks, and including the INBS, resembled more venture ... hedge funds, essentially-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: -----rather than a building society.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: And the second part of the question was the close relationships, and yourself being very central to that with people you were giving huge amounts of money to, would it be fair to say that it was crony capitalism as well as venture capitalism?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Fingleton, isn't it true that you had seen in your long career as well many property busts in many different countries and bank bursts as well? Surely, would you not have been aware of the inherent risk in that type of speculative lending on property?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Fingleton, in thejournal.ie, 12 February 2013, there is a quote. Con Power, who sat on the INBS board between 2000 and 2006, noted how there were just six people, including himself, on the board and meetings would normally begin with the chairman asking Fingleton: "Well, Michael, what have you got for us today?", with no agenda and no documents before the board members. That would give...