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Houses of the Oireachtas Volume 2 No HOUSES OF THE Oireachtas Volume 2 No. 39 Morning No. 40 Afternoon AN COMHCHOISTE FIOSRÚCHÁIN I DTAOBH NA GÉARCHÉIME BAINCÉI- REACHTA JOINT COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY INTO THE BANKING CRISIS Déardaoin, 2 Iúil 2015 Thursday, 2 July 2015 The Committee met at 9.30 a.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Deputy Pearse Doherty, Senator Sean D. Barrett, Deputy Joe Higgins, Senator Michael D’Arcy, Deputy Michael McGrath, Senator Marc MacSharry, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, Senator Susan O’Keeffe. Deputy Kieran O’Donnell, Deputy John Paul Phelan, DEPUTY CIARÁN LYNCH IN THE CHAIR. 1 NEXUS PHASE Nexus Phase Department of Finance - Mr. Brian Cowen Chairman: As we have a quorum, the Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis is now in public session. Can I ask members and those in the public Gallery to ensure that their mobile devices are switched off. We begin today’s session No. 1, which is a public hearing and discus- sion with Mr. Brian Cowen, former Taoiseach and Minister for Finance. In doing so I’d like to welcome everyone to the public hearing of the Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis. Today we continue our hearings with senior members of the Government who had key roles during and after the crisis period. This morning and this afternoon we will hear from Mr. Brian Cowen, former Taoiseach and Minister for Finance. Brian Cowen was a TD for Laois- Offaly from June 1984 until February 2011. He held several senior positions in Government, and served as Minister for Finance from September 2004 until May 2008 when he succeeded Bertie Ahern as An Taoiseach. At this mornings session we will focus on Mr. Cowen’s tenure as Minister for Finance, from his appointment until the general election of 2007, and deal with matters dealing with Mr. Cowen’s tenure as Minister for Finance from 2007 until his appoint- ment as Taoiseach, this afternoon. Before I hear from the witness, I wish to advise the witness that by virtue of section 17(2) (l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to this committee. If you are directed by the Chairman to cease giving evidence in relation to a particular matter and you continue to do so, you are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of your evidence. You are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given. If you are directed by the Chairman to cease giving evidence in relation to a particular matter and you continue to do so, you are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of your evidence and you are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given. I would remind members and those present that there are currently criminal proceedings ongoing and further criminal proceedings are scheduled during the lifetime of the inquiry which overlap with the subject matter of the inquiry. Therefore, the utmost caution should be taken not to prejudice those proceedings. Members of the public are reminded that photography is prohib- ited in the committee room. To assist the smooth running of the inquiry, we will display certain documents on the screens here in the committee room. For those sitting in the Gallery, these documents will be displayed on the screens to your left and to your right. Members of the pub- lic and journalists are reminded these documents are confidential and they should not publish any of the documents so displayed. The witness has been directed to attend this meeting of the Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis. You have been furnished with booklets and core documents. These are before the committee, will be relied upon in questioning and form part of the evidence of the inquiry. So with that said, if I can now ask the clerk to administer the oath to Mr. Cowen, please. The following witness was sworn in by the Clerk to the Committee: 2 JOINT COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY INTO THE BANKING CRISIS Mr. Brian Cowen, former Taoiseach and Minister for Finance. Chairman: So, again, welcome this morning, Mr. Cowen, and if I can invite you to make your opening statement to the committee, please. Mr. Brian Cowen: Good morning, Chairman, and good morning members of the commit- tee. I welcome the opportunity to address today’s session and to assist the inquiry where I can in its deliberations. As requested by the inquiry, I have submitted two separate written state- ments relating to what you describe as themes and lines of inquiry which the committee wishes to discuss with me. The first written statement covers my tenure as Minister for Finance from September 2004 until May 2008 and the second relates to my time as Taoiseach from May 2008 to March 2011. I understand that at today’s proceedings we are discussing my period as Minister for Finance. Next week, I am to return to deal with my time as Taoiseach. These are the arrangements that you have asked me to comply with and I am happy to do so. If I may, Chairman, as this is my first appearance before the committee, I wish to make a few introduc- tory remarks? I want to say, first of all, to the Irish people, that the Government I led dealt with the fi- nancial crisis to the very best of its ability. I know the crisis brought with it difficulties and problems of all kinds to many people throughout the country and as Head of the Government I accept full and complete responsibility for my role in and our response to that crisis. I am sorry that the policies we felt necessary to put in place in responding to the financial crisis brought with it hardship and distress to many people. The human cost of dealing with this crisis, which we sought to mitigate as best we could, was the most difficult aspect of the decisions we had to make. What we did was about restoring financial stability to the country. We must learn from this difficult experience and ensure that it doesn’t happen again. This exercise, however, is not just about expressing regret or sorrow but to indicate that I will be approaching all questions in as an objective and non-defensive a manner as possible. To do otherwise would not serve the interests of this inquiry or future generations. I hope also to dispel some of the assertions which have been pushed sometimes for personal or party politi- cal reasons. I think the best contribution I can make before this inquiry is to give you and the public an insight into what our thinking was at the time and what were the factors we had to consider in making decisions. We did not have the benefit of hindsight. While there is ... there was an international context to our difficulties, there is no doubt that there were failures on the domestic front also. I hope that my engagement with you here will help people to understand the nature of the problems we faced - there’s never as much room to manoeuvre in the crisis as some would have one believe. The Government I led has had these matters examined by commissioning and publishing two reports - Regling and Watson, and Honohan. We also set up a statutory commission of investigation, chaired by Mr. Peter Nyberg. He produced another valuable and substantive contribution in the examination of the banking crisis. The Oireachtas banking inquiry is an- other important exercise in accountability. I have always intimated, since the inquiry was first mooted, that of course I will co-operate with you as you undertake your work here. In relation to the actions I took, I want to make it clear from the beginning that nothing I have to say here should be interpreted by anyone in any way as an attempt by me to pass the buck to anyone else. Mr. Nyberg makes a very prescient comment in his report with which I fully concur and subscribe to when he says: People in a position to make decisions are and must be ultimately responsible for them 3 NEXUS PHASE regardless of what advice or suggestions they have received. The higher and more influen- tial their position the greater their responsibility. It is a reality of life today that a country’s economy cannot operate without a functioning banking system. The Government’s responsibility was to try and save the economy. In doing that, we also had to have a banking system. I agree with Professor Honohan when he says in his report that the primary responsibility for this crisis rests with the banks themselves. It’s im- portant to recognise that, in the pre-crisis period, there was what turned out to be reckless lend- ing by individual banks, made worse by a bonus culture incentivising short-term gains. I also accept that the Irish and European regulatory systems failed completely to recognise the extent of the risks that could materialise and to stop the over-dependence of Irish banks on overseas wholesale funding. In terms of the bank guarantee, I believe it was the most decisive step that the Government could take on that night to deal with the problem. It was clear that we were on our own. We had one shot at it. If we did not get it right, Ireland, we were told, would be set back 25 years. We had to go with the best information available to us at the time.
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