Results 1-20 of 77 for esri segment:6129007

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

Professor John FitzGerald: No. Anything I did, I did as John FitzGerald for the ESRI. If people approached me, they did it because I was in the ESRI. In most cases, it was much simpler if they paid the ESRI directly rather than pay me and I having to transfer that. I work for the ESRI and that is it.

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

Professor John FitzGerald: Under my contract in the ESRI, anything I did, even something such as appearing with Marian Finucane, for which a fee is paid, is payable to the ESRI. We do not do independent work. We work for the ESRI and anything we do, such as being on the board of the Central Bank, and anything I am paid for that is sent to the ESRI.

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

Ciarán Lynch: In his opening statement, Professor FitzGerald stated:With all ESRI reports, the conclusions in each report were the personal responsibility of the authors. They did not represent the views of the ESRI. The ESRI with all its publications operates a quality control process where the publications were vetted in advance by independent reviewers to ensure they met an appropriate academic...

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

Pearse Doherty: Professor FitzGerald has told the committee the ESRI did not conduct research in areas of banking or financial institutions, yet it came to conclusions that suggested the fundamentals were sound. I assume Professor FitzGerald would suggest that a properly functioning banking system is one fundamental of the economy. Can he explain to the committee why the ESRI came to such a conclusion in...

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

Professor John FitzGerald: The ESRI was founded in 1960 to provide independent advice to the Government. Professor Joe Lee in his Ireland, 1912-1985: Politics and Society, commented on the fact that universities were not producing useful research at the time. It was an initiative led by Dr. Ken Whitaker, the then Secretary of the Department of Finance. To guarantee its independence, he...

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

Ciarán Lynch: What is relationship between the ESRI and the Department of Finance in the publication of the medium-term reviews? Does the ESRI do this in co-operation with the Department? Is it through a request from the Department?

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

Eoghan Murphy: So am I then right in thinking it was frosty on both sides? The ESRI had a particular view of the Department of Finance and the Department had a particular view of the ESRI.

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

Kieran O'Donnell: The ESRI is an independent body that does not occupy a political world. Why with all these winds in the air in terms of inflows of funds from US banks for the Irish banking sector and the property bubble that were highlighted independently on a myriad of occasions, did the ESRI baulk in the 2008 report-----

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

Michael McGrath: Did they explain the rationale behind their request for the ESRI to look at stress testing? It would have been something the ESRI had not done before and which was possibly duplicating what the Central Bank was doing. Did they express any concerns about the methodology of the Central Bank? Why were they coming to another institute?

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

...they do not necessarily agree with it. For example, if a professor in Trinity College Dublin says something, the provost is not expected to answer for that. In the public mind, people believe the ESRI thinks. The ESRI does not think. It is its researchers that think. The ESRI corporately does not take responsibility but it does take responsibility for the quality of the research and...

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

Ciarán Lynch: Before I turn to our lead questioners, Deputy Pearse Doherty and Senator Michael D'Arcy, I will do some scene setting with Professor FitzGerald to provide some clarity on the role of the ESRI and its relationship with the Department of Finance. The ESRI is often described as the Government think tank. Is this an accurate description? Will Professor FitzGerald describe the...

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

...: It is not clear to me that AIB wanted me to do it, but I was very clear that I was not going to do it. There was a line. I was prepared to do work that would be in the public domain. The ESRI does research to be published without censorship. My concern was that to do a private good which I would not be able to publish would be contrary to the remit of the ESRI.

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

Pearse Doherty: In relation to the expertise the ESRI holds, notwithstanding that it got a number of things wrong as the Professor has acknowledged, were any officials, including the Professor, contacted by the Department or the Minister in relation to the events leading up to the guarantee, the decision itself or afterwards? Was there any consultation with the ESRI and were its views requested by anybody...

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

Susan O'Keeffe: ...written to the Financial Regulator on foot of his concern about developers potentially leveraging funding from a bank in Poland as well as banks here. Did he do that personally or on behalf of the ESRI? What made him suddenly think to do it at that moment, given that it was the realm of developers and bank financing in which, he has acknowledged, the ESRI did not have expertise.

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

Michael D'Arcy: The professor makes the point that he decides what he does within the ESRI in respect of the papers he publishes. The ESRI is probably the largest economic think tank in the State. I looked for the analysis of the nation’s banking sector collapse. There seems to be very little analysis by the largest economic think tank of the €100 billion collapse of the Irish banking...

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

John Paul Phelan: In another answer earlier, Professor FitzGerald was speaking about the funding of the ESRI in his time there. He said that 30% of the funding now comes directly from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, DPER. In the period leading up to the collapse, 2003-08, the ESRI produced a property index in conjunction with one of the banks, Permanent TSB. Can I ask the nature of that...

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

Eoghan Murphy: I thank the Chairman and Professor FitzGerald. I want to look in the first instance at the relationship between the ESRI and the Department of Finance. I think Professor FitzGerald said earlier that in the interactions between the ESRI and the Department of Finance, he clipped them and they would grin and bear it but then in the last decade they became more grumpy. When he released the...

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

Kieran O'Donnell: ...spoke about a tumour. He used the analogy of a tumour in respect of how the property market and the banking sector had spread throughout the economy. How did such a tumour go undetected by the ESRI on the basis that it produced reports for the Department of Finance in 2003 on the national development plan, where it was very critical of the growth in the property sector, and a follow-up...

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

Eoghan Murphy: ...of debt and the loss of competitiveness in the economy were foreseeable and [as set out in the appendix] foreseen." The appendix contains the implications for fiscal policy of the analysis in the ESRI quarterly economic commentary and the medium-term review in the period 2001 to 2008. He contends that the dangers the economy faced were foreseen by the ESRI and published over the period....

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

Pearse Doherty: ...early 2006. I hope he will provide details of that individual for the committee at a later stage in order that it can follow through on that matter. He also said in his opening statement that the ESRI had not drawn a connection between the growth of the property market bubble and the risk to the financial system in 2008. Can he help me to understand how the ESRI did not draw the...