Results 121-140 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. Mr. Noonan, are you aware of a book called The Price of Power, by Pat Leahy, who is political editor of The Sunday Business Post?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes. And Mr. Leahy says, "By Thursday morning 31 March, the ECB had woken up to the Irish intention of imposing losses on senior bondholders in Anglo" and that a series of conversations between Frankfurt and Dublin, as it was put, took place. Can you tell us about those conversations please?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: And then can you tell us the conversations that then ensued?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: So, Mr. Noonan, there was no agreement in that phone call between you and Mr. Trichet then? Did the Taoiseach then speak to-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: That was in the second phone call with you and Mr.-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: But to you, not to the Taoiseach?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: And did the Taoiseach also-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Did the Taoiseach also speak-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Noonan, you were on the way virtually to Dáil Éireann. Certain Deputies here will remember sitting and waiting for you after 4.30 while this was going on. So after the three phone calls when these threats - economic threats - were made, what did you do then?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Was there a meeting of the Economic Management Council?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Noonan, Deputy Eoghan Murphy questioned Mr. Trichet in Kilmainham in relation to whether he had used the words that an economic bomb will go off and, again, there is a problem with his English. He said first "I will certainly have utilised metaphor of that kind" but then went to say in a second phrase "would have been totally not in line with the relationship I had with the Government",...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay, and Mr. Noonan-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Noonan, Deputy Murphy further questioned Mr. Trichet and he asked him, "Did you threaten to withdraw ECB assistance to Ireland if we did not repay those bonds?" And Mr. Trichet said, "That has no meaning. That has no meaning". And the Deputy further asked, "Did you threaten to withdraw European assistance to the Irish national sovereign if we decided to-----". Mr. Trichet said, "No,...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Noonan, you say in your written statement that weighing up the potential savings of €3.7 billion that would accrue essentially if the burning had taken place against "the immediate and devastating impact of withdrawal of European Central Bank support in Ireland, the impact on financial stability, jobs and the daily lives of Irish citizens, the Government took the decision not to...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: -----because there was no-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Noonan, no less than four Government Ministers said to Mr. Leahy for his book that their understanding was, I'll quote one of them: The understanding was that Noonan would burn them. That's the understanding we had. And that was corroborated by three other Government Ministers. They didn't think that it was qualified in that way.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Noonan, you then came into the Dáil ten minutes later than scheduled. Deputies had been waiting.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes. Can I just put the following to you and ask you if you agree or disagree if it's a fair or unfair characterisation? So you, a representative of a Government that is supposed to be sovereign, on your way to report to a Parliament that is supposed to be sovereign about a Government decision to burn bondholders in a failed institution and that, on your way, the President - an unelected...