I welcome Mr. Peter Mathews. He will make opening remarks which will be followed by a question and answer session. I request members to be concise and to the point in their questions as we must finish around 3 p.m. We do not have much time. I request everyone to switch off their mobile telephones. I draw everyone's attention to the fact that members of the committee have absolute privilege but that privilege does not apply to witnesses appearing before the committee. The committee cannot guarantee any level of privilege to witnesses appearing before it. Further, under the salient rulings of the Chair, members should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I invite Mr. Mathews to make his presentation.
NAMA and the Banking Crisis: Discussion.
Mr. Peter Mathews
I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for the opportunity to speak. I have circulated papers, the first batch of which contains three ideas. The first is the recapitalisation schedule of the banks that are viable based on correct analysis of correct facts. The second two batches are the suggested and demonstrated least-cost alternatives for, respectively, Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society.
I accept we are tight on time. I have heard that one of the two gentlemen tasked with the banking inquiry is in town and that Members of both Houses wish to speak with him. That may be significant because as a preference I would have liked him to attend this meeting. It is unfortunate that we are pressed for time and that we have to conclude at 3 p.m. because it has taken five years for the banking industry in its totally deregulated and irresponsible mode to lead the country to where we are now, namely, a state of financial devastation. It is absurd that we would take a fast-food approach to compressing time available to consider the important big picture issues relating to the crisis.
The crisis burst in September 2008. Lehman Brothers was the biggest symptom of that bursting but the creation of the financial meltdown in this country took five years to put together. The boards of banks abandoned the principles of banking. The fundamental tenet of the protection of a bank's assets and liabilities, especially its customers' deposits, depend on fractional reserving. That was abandoned. Five years of balance sheet examination proved that to be the case. That in turn proves that no directors on the boards of a bank, as has been put forward by Members of both Houses of the Oireachtas, should remain in their positions if they have any integrity or honesty. They caused financial and social wreckage. The question, as it was on 28 September 2008, is how we measure it truthfully, diagnose what needs to be done to correct it and decide on a plan based on that diagnosis. Instead, we have the knee-jerk reaction, understandably, of a blanket guarantee.
The bank guarantee was okay as far as it went. To extend it for two years, however, and to do nothing in the intervening 19 months, except for establishing NAMA, was the wrong diagnosis and strategy. It must be reversed.
The cardinal error in this strategy was trying to tell the Dáil, the Seanad, the President and the people that it was the only strategy available to the banks. It was not. I refer the committee to the overview of the six banks and building societies — AIB, Bank of Ireland, Anglo Irish Bank, EBS, Nationwide and Irish Life and Permanent, now owned by the people — produced and presented on the next working day after 16 September. It took the meaningful information from the then available published accounts. On one page it presents the obvious solution to addressing the banking sector's problems.
However, when Oireachtas Members had to make a decision on the future of the largest financial project in the history of the State, they got supplementary financial information. This is contained in the booklet that I am holding up which is essentially a meaningless document which expressly states it is published without responsibility or accountability. It contains six financial packages as produced by the institutions that behaved recklessly. That was not even combined in an overview or summary sense. However, Deputies and Senators passed the legislation that has now led us into what can only be described as a financial mess.
Independent experts and analysts examined the truth and the facts and then assembled them but the Department of Finance did not want to discuss it. I know that from at least eight of the prominent independent analysts who generously gave of their time because they knew we were in a financial Dunkirk. Despite physical and telephone approaches to the Department of Finance to discuss the problem back in September 2008, it always said it was too busy. It is unbelievable and it remains that way to this date.
Under the camouflage of the Lisbon treaty referendum when the whole country went into a tizzy, the NAMA legislation chugged its way through with a propaganda-PR machine claiming it was the only show in town. What a cheap shot and pathetic phrase. It was not.
This one-page document I referred to shows the abandonment of fractional reserving and the lack of liquidity in the banks. It also shows the first tenet of the NAMA proposal, to increase liquidity and improve credit for businesses and households, could not work. That is proved by fact not by opinion that the main tenet of the whole exercise was a fraud.
Simon Carswell of The Irish Times published a report on 8 February 2010 that recorded two important pieces of pointed advice from the IMF team visiting the Department of Finance in March 2009, a time when there was not a full understanding of the types of loans and their non-recoverability that was going to emerge. For people like me who have experience of loans, work-outs and recoveries, we knew the second main tenet of the NAMA project, that loan losses would be contained at €23 billion, was wrong.
That was the tipping point of keeping banks out of nationalisation instead of truthfully asking what was the capital requirement of the banking sector. The answer was not €23 billion of write-downs; the IMF told us it was €35 billion.
In fact this figure is more. AIB on the PricewaterhouseCoopers listings revealed €24 billion worth of loans. It fiddled with it to claim it is only €23 billion. A write-down of 40% on €24 billion means a €9.6 billion capital requirement immediately and not a €7.4 billion requirement made up by the end of the year through a mixture of share issues or selling M&T or Bank Zachodni SA. This is not truthful. We need to hear the truth that AIB in effect needs €10 billion. It also needs a fresh board of directors and a recovery division which will recover those write-down loans.
I heard Mr. Frank Daly doing his best on Seán O'Rourke's radio programme at lunchtime. However, he does not come from a banking or loan recovery background. He comes from a very dedicated, specific but different professional background. Recovering loans when they go bad, the operability of security, the complexity of the operability and the instructions needed is a job for bankers who are competent, uncompromised, non-conflicted, non-contaminated and non-corrupted. There are enough good people left in the three viable banks — AIB, Bank of Ireland and EBS — to fill those positions.
The time restriction is really suffocating and not fair. I ask the committee to reconvene to listen to the truth because the country deserves it.
Bank of Ireland by its own admission has €16 billion on its list of runners and riders of bad loans. A 40% write-down works out at €6.4 billion. It should be rounded to €6.5 billion because it has mortgage loans that will go bad and other exposures on foot of guarantees. I know that because I was in this business.
We have waited 19 months to be led around in circles of unreliable, inaccurate and untruthful information. We then get distracted from the fundamental question of how much capital the banks require by who should be appointed chief executive or how much their salary will be. These are banks which we the State keep open everyday because of the State guarantee. The State is the entity to which these boards of banks should be reporting.
A five-hour charade took place in AIB some days ago during which there was talk of the dilution affecting the shareholders. That is yesterday's news as the bank needs €10 billion immediately. If there is any juxtaposing or realising of assets to be done, it should be done in the context of having a bank properly capitalised for now. Perhaps two years' time will be the right time to sell or merge M&T Bank with another body. However, doing so now with a view to rushing to avoid a heavier dilution than the existing shareholders would like, and supported by a board that has not been fully cleaned out, is wrong. In simple English, it is wrong, and the mother of anybody present could tell one so.
One should not be fooled by jargon from so-called experts and stockbrokers. Banking is an easy business and needs three things: capital to start; trustworthy, competent directors in management; and good stationary, including pens, ink, telephones and telex and e-mail technology. Truthfulness of reporting is required, as is judgment not to take money in one lump from one person and lend it all in one lump to somebody else with the wrong maturities. Banking is not very complex but does rely on truthfulness and trust, which we have not got yet.
The banks do not need NAMA, which allows them to ditch their dirty washing to a vehicle that has never been tested or flown before and which is headed by people who are good in their own right but who have never fought the battle and who do not know what is involved. It might be useful to have some of these people on the boards of nationalised banks. The banks will have to be nationalised because AIB needs €10 billion and Bank of Ireland needs €6.5 billion. EBS needs €0.8 billion — Mr. Elderfield pointed out to me that it is not €0.5 billion. I am just talking about simple, correct analysis of the banks' problem.
In broad terms, Anglo Irish Bank has an asset side to its balance sheet of €72 billion, comprised mainly of loans. There is approximately €6 billion or €7 billion in financial assets it can recover in the order of nearly 100% but it has a loan book of at least €65 billion to €68 billion that is pretty bad. In this regard, I will not use the term used by Mr. Levin in the United States. Some 60% of the debt will probably never be recovered. We must, therefore, face the music and realise there is no point in haemorrhaging and using sticking plasters for the next ten or 15 years. The best recoveries need to be effected sooner rather than later.
If only 40% of the debt can be recovered, it will amount to approximately €30 billion. The customers' deposits amount to approximately €27 billion. They must be repaid and they represent the women and children on the sinking ship. Bank deposits must replace the huge outflow of customer deposits, notwithstanding the fact there was a State guarantee. This shows one how big the problem is and the extent of the panic. Bank deposits comprise a mixture of emergency funds from the ECB, Cental Bank deposits at Anglo Irish Bank and other interbank deposits reliant on the umbrella of the State guarantee. There are also senior bonds and subordinated bonds to be considered.
I do not have time to discuss senior bonds; suffice it to say that even if my pension fund and those of my family are invested in Anglo Irish Bank bonds, investors must accept the consequences, legally and morally, of their own arrogance and insistence that deregulated markets were the place to be. Investors believed they were the most efficient capital markets and that they knew best how to counterparty regulate and counterparty appraise their target investments. That is a consequence and must be accepted. It would be nonsense for us, our families and citizens of this State to be placing ourselves between the consequences of what these investors knew and insisted upon arrogantly for the past 12 years and the future well-being of our families.
On the question of whether there has been any funny business between 28 September 2008 and 28 September 2010, as I suspect there may have been given that it is very hard to know what is going on, it will be noted that the information that has emerged has usually been unreliable and manipulated. In this regard, consider the announcement a week ago by the Government that the €500 million placing by Bank of Ireland merited a terrific applause on three levels. The levels involved the benefiting of shareholders, the benefiting of the economic recovery and the benefiting of the State. This is nonsense because the placing does not provide the capital Bank of Ireland needs which, by any honest measure, amounts to €6.5 billion. One can fuss over Basel I and Basel II and over what assets qualify but one should realise Bank of Ireland has €16 billion in bad loans on its balance sheet that it is not going to collect. It has more bad loans in addition to the €16 billion.
While there may have been a little cosmetic profit earned on the buying back of warrants by Bank of Ireland for the State and while one can say the bank will now be promising to increase its lending to SMEs by €3 billion this year and €3 billion the following year, the story being circulated is nonsense and I do not believe a word of it. The bank does not even tell us what it has done right and now we are asked to believe what it is going to do right. The way to ensure we know what will happen is by insisting on quarterly reporting on the recoveries business of the banks on the basis of the written down and recapitalised amounts, and quarterly reporting on their normal business.
AIB boasted only four weeks ago about €2.95 billion in operating profits. My submission shows that if we take over the revivable banks at a level of 95%, we will own 95% of the average maintainable profits of the three entities when they have been rehabilitated, bootcamped and rebooted into doing proper business and engaging in truthfulness. That business will produce €4.5 billion to €5 billion in profits, which if multiplied by seven amounts to a figure between €32 billion and €35 billion. This more than repays the investment now needed to correctly capitalise the banks, €17 billion, in addition to the investment already made of €10.8 billion. The total investment under the current approach is €27.8 billion.
I have outlined how the State should get its money back and insist and ensure the boards of banks are cleaned. My approach will ensure business will benefit because the bonds held by the banks to achieve recapitalisation can be used as collateral in the same way as the NAMA bonds at the ECB, at a level of, say, 80% of face value, to provide initial liquidity. The remaining liquidity comes from the recoveries at the truly written down and achievable values of the loans that are bad. There would be no transfers to NAMA, which creates a swamp and muddle and costs at least twice what properly manned, managed and motivated divisions in the banks would cost. The absurdity in the banks is that the NAMA divisions are doing——
I will allow a few questions. We will consider another meeting on this subject on another date.
Mr. Peter Mathews
I believe we should. This matter is too important not to. The bottom line is that we should reverse the transfer of loans to NAMA, have those loans remain on the books of the banks, control the banks for five years and achieve rehabilitation. This is transparent and honest. Nobody that this approach has been explained to has been able to find fault with it. The Department did not even want to hear it. What sort of carry-on is taking place in the Department of Finance? Who are the men and women who staff it? They will not discuss the mechanism to correct what is essentially the street banking utility of the country, to make businesses capable of trading, getting working capital and investment capital. It is unbelievable, so the answer is all there in those three pages. I entreat the committee to please read them and to enter a meaningful discussion.
Mr. Mathews used words in relation to the figures that the public has received in respect of the banks. He referred to "unreliability" and to the public being lied to, in the information it was given. He referred to information being manipulated and the need for honest measures. Piecing together what he said in the presentation, does that mean there has been no honest accounting by either the Department of Finance or the Government in relation to the level of seriousness of the conditions in the banks? He mentioned quarterly reporting and so on, but if so, how does he believe this should be addressed? Many of the events he has described such as March 2009 are very specifically outside the remit of the limited inquiry the Government has established. Does he believe the remit of the inquiry needs to be broadened?
On quarterly reporting, should this be reviewed in, say, the Dáil and the finance committee, to allow citizens to be aware of the full picture? Most of all, when he uses terms such as "lied to", does that mean he believes we really have not been told the truth by the various parties?
Mr. Peter Mathews
Yes, absolutely, I use that term carefully and advisedly. I have been using figures only from published material, doing estimates on those from tested experience, checking them against other experts' experience and advice and was told repeatedly for the past nine months that the alternative, as it were, assessment of those facts was rubbish – and it was not rubbish. Why, with all its resources, was there this fear of the truth? To use a massive analogy, when Nagasaki and Hiroshima were destroyed by the bombs, they could not pretend that they were not destroyed. In this country there was a phoniness and a pretence about the damage.
It seemed to me and to others that the arrival of a preferred powerful professional political institutional group of people, who, on an extended basis, through their staffs and so on may number 7,000 or 8,000, saw that a knee-jerk proposal, with the total exclusion of any other thinking except NAMA, was idiotic: clean the banks' balance sheets of bad assets, get liquidity flowing and the loans will not lead to losses of more than €23 billion because there will be long-term economic value through the uplift of the economy, and so on and so forth. They did not even want to discuss the lack of foundation for those three idiotic remarks. In retrospect, they were idiotic.
I thank Mr. Mathews for his presentation. Some of us felt from the outset that dividing banking into a recovery division within the bank and a "good bank" that would get back to lending to business and the economy at large was the least cost approach. Quite a number of people would support that general approach. I want to ask Mr. Mathews specifically about some of the things, however.
In respect of AIB and Bank of Ireland, Mr. Mathews asserts that their capital requirements are much greater than has been admitted. Perhaps he could identify——
Mr. Peter Mathews
I do not assert, but rather I show that the loan losses at a write-down level of 40% requires more capital than they are——
I understand as regards the prudential capital assessment, that the Office of the Financial Regulator started with the NAMA write-down, and then did an assessment on what it regarded should be done on the non-NAMA loans. Then it applied what it regarded as a prudential buffer to take into account the rose-tinted views within the banks, perhaps, and that is how the final €2.7 billion and €7.4 billion were reached.
Mr. Peter Mathews
The €2.5 billion loss, I believe, and €7.4 recapitalisation.
Mr. Mathews might let me ask the question before he gives the answer. Where does he see the flaw as having occurred? Is it in the methodology applied by the Offices of the Financial Regulator and the Central Bank——
Mr. Peter Mathews
It is espoused in the interim movement of assets, that is, selling M & T bank and the Polish bank and they are assuming that these things can be achieved.
Perhaps I am wrong, but did the Financial Regulator not come up with the €7.4 billion in respect of AIB, and then ask that bank how it would realise capital of that nature. It was left to the Government and the bank to determine how that was to be filled. However, Mr. Mathews's demonstration is to the effect that AIB is €2.2 billion adrift. I am trying to establish whether that is a fault of the Elderfield-Honohan analysis way of reaching it——
Mr. Peter Mathews
The Deputy has used the word, "methodology".
That is right. Is this where that flaw has occurred, and what is wrong with it?
Mr. Peter Mathews
I should like to take that point, and it is well made. Methodology is valid based on the assumptions and their acceptance or otherwise. It comes down to the judgment of anybody who is in banking for a long time and understands our economy and the type of ratios that are needed as a de facto experience. No matter what they say in Basle, Canada, France or England, we all know that if only 60% of €24 billion can be collected and 40% has to be written down, it would be as well to do the sensible thing, stick in that capital straightaway and see what happens with the rest. However, if one is going to fall short by €2.2 billion, one will limp along and one will not be able to do the €3 billion——
I do not want to be argumentative, but we thought we had experts in banking as regards Mr. Matthew Elderfield, a new person coming in and in Professor Patrick Honohan, also, a new person coming in.
Mr. Peter Mathews
It was speculation.
They did the prudential capital assessment review and came up with the €7.4 billion and the €2.7 billion figures. Most people on all sides of the House thought that those were bedrock figures, and that these were new experts coming in who were not being taken in by the rose-tinted glasses of existing boards or anyone else. Is Mr. Matthews saying that they have got it wrong as well?
Mr. Peter Mathews
I am saying that I have a different judgment on the matter. My judgment so far, in relation to where things will lie as regards the necessary write-down levels and what losses would arise in certain situations has been proven correct by the facts. I do not want to look as if I have fallen short, the putt that never went into the hole. One must get the ball up to the hole to get it in.
My experience concurs with that of other people with a similar length of experience to mine, and who know the background and the types of loan books these banks have. Remember that Mr. Elderfield is looking at the scenario from a "laboratory-type" perspective. He is seeing it from the templates of the best theoretical and historical practice. This is on the ground stuff. This is like an Irish doctor recognising a cough as possibly containing tuberculosis.
Under the current model, NAMA has taken a 47% average write-down on loans transferred to it. What is Mr. Mathews's estimate on the loss that will fall on NAMA? Where does he think the losses made by AIB and other banks will fall? Does he think AIB and Bank of Ireland will come back at a future date seeking more capital from the State?
Mr. Peter Mathews
No. I think we will have "limp along" banks or zombie banks. The indications are that Bank of Ireland will just about stay outside 50% control if it achieves the current plan. That makes it a "limp along" bank that thinks it has the ability to do what is needed of a major utility bank in the economy. If the State grabs the handle bars for five years, we have a much better chance of that bank fulfilling the functions that need to be fulfilled for businesses and households with transparency and direct motivational control.
I am not afraid of State involvement. I worked in——
I have one final question. When that bigger loss occurs under the model of State involvement, on whose account will it fall?
Mr. Peter Mathews
It will lead to another drawing from the well. They will be back to us for more and there will be a fudging of things.
In Mr. Mathews's model, do any of the bondholders——
Mr. Peter Mathews
We get in straight away and we do it all within four weeks. The Americans did it in a fortnight under TARP 2. TARP 1 was their NAMA and they then relieved Congressmen of the party whip. They decided that TARP 1, which is like NAMA, is not the way to go because it leads to exactly the problems that we have had. TARP 2 was a direct capital injection and it worked. They are way ahead of us.
As various senior bonds mature within the banks, what does Mr. Mathews think will happen in a bank that is 95% State owned to those senior bondholders whose bonds would otherwise be due to be paid at par?
Mr. Peter Mathews
There is no problem in the two viable banks and the building society. Those bonds can be refinanced and rolled over in the normal course of business. It is just a matter for the shareholders, which is temporarily the State until we cash out of that investment in five years on rehabilitated banks that have normal operating profits of €4.5 billion to €5 billion. That is an easily achievable target. We should not worry about the bonds in those banks. We only have to worry about the bonds in Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide. The bondholders in those banks should take the consequences of their investment.
Mr. Mathews describes himself as a former ICC banker. Can he give us an idea of his involvement with ICC and tell us when he retired? He also describes himself as a consultant. Can he give us an indication of some of the companies or banks for which he is doing consultancy work at the moment?
Mr. Peter Mathews
I have an auditing background from Coopers and Lybrand and I audited AIB, other banks and stockbroking firms in that period of my life. I then joined ICC Bank where I worked for 20 years and I was in charge of property lending. We were specialist lenders in that division with a hallmark, prudential approach to lending. The sort of stuff that has happened in the other banks would have never happened under the way we approached lending to property developers and investors.
Many people do not realise that the two big banks were not involved in property lending in the 1980s and the 1990s. Bank of Ireland had a small subsidiary company called PLIC, or the Property Loan and Investment Company, in which high net worth individuals could get a 60% loan on a rented investment property. The margins were 3% and 4%. That is how conservative Bank of Ireland was then. Property lending was often just bridging finance in office block developments and so on for the eventual take out by a pension fund that had pre-signed its commitment to taking it out. Banks lent the bridging finance or the working capital or the construction finance.
When did Mr. Mathews retire from ICC?
Mr. Peter Mathews
I did not retire. I left the bank in 1998 and since then I have been a consultant to many individuals and companies.
What companies and banking institutions is Mr. Mathews now consulting?
Mr. Peter Mathews
In the last four of five months, a huge amount of my time has been spent in trying to get the truth out about where we are in this economy.
Can Mr. Mathews give us an idea of the banks and other organisations he has been consulting?
Mr. Peter Mathews
There is an irony here. From about 2004 onwards, I was advising clients on deals to get out of land and property.
So Mr. Mathews was not advising other banking institutions or other national or international organisations?
Mr. Peter Mathews
I was a director of a financial assets holding company that took assets off the group balance sheet of KBC. It was a $5 billion balance sheet company and I was a director there for three and a half years. I was not happy because I wanted evidence of the internal controls——
I am not interested in that detail.
Mr. Peter Mathews
Why not?
I just want to establish the companies for which Mr. Mathews has been acting as a consultant over the last few years.
Mr. Peter Mathews
I resigned from that position for prudential reasons at the start of 2008.
The most key issue mentioned today by Mr. Mathews is that AIB needs to be capitalised to the tune of €10 billion. Professor Patrick Honohan and Mr. Matthew Elderfield set the capital ratios and set the figures of €7.4 billion for AIB and €2.8 billion for Bank of Ireland. Does Mr. Mathews disagree with the figures, the analysis and the decisions made by Professor Honohan and Mr. Elderfield?
Mr. Peter Mathews
I agree with 74% of their figures, that is to say, I agree with €7.4 billion out of €10 billion. There is another 26% to make up.
So Mr. Mathews disagrees with them.
Mr. Peter Mathews
I do not disagree. The Deputy should not put words in my mouth. I am saying that they are on the way to arriving at my figure. If we all sat down and had this discussion, maybe they would agree with me. Is that not an interesting thought?
They have mentioned two figures of €7.4 billion and €2.8 billion, but Mr. Mathews has stated that they are wrong because it should be €10 billion for AIB. I just want to establish whether he agrees with them or not.
Mr. Peter Mathews
Does the Deputy want to hear what I think?
I have heard it.
Mr. Peter Mathews
I will repeat it because I think the Deputy misheard it. In my opinion, AIB needs €10 billion now before the end of the year, not €7.4 billion. Is that clear?
Okay. Can Mr. Mathews tell us how much his fundamental principle of blanket nationalisation of the banking system would cost the taxpayer?
Mr. Peter Mathews
It is in the paper that was circulated.
Can he give us the figure?
Mr. Peter Mathews
It is €17 billion.
The Minister for Finance stated at the weekend that the policy of blanket nationalisation, which some have advocated, would have deprived Bank of Ireland of the considerable private sector funds it is now raising, leaving the taxpayer to foot the bill. Would Mr. Mathews's policy initiatives not prevent Bank of Ireland from being in a position to raise money in the private sector, as Bank of Ireland has just done?
Mr. Peter Mathews
Rather than an immediate knee-jerk, we should think over five years. The €27.8 billion on the sheet will pay us back a minimum of €32 billion, probably €35 billion and maybe more in five years. That is a far bigger dividend for the State, with transparency in the interim, with businesses benefiting and the economy gaining traction.
That is not the question I asked.
Mr. Peter Mathews
It is the question.
Unfortunately, we have to finish our meeting——
Could I have the figure stated as to the cost of the blanket nationalisation Mr. Mathews feels is the proper way to go forward?
Mr. Peter Mathews
It is on the first page the Deputy received — €17 billion on top of the €7 billion already invested in the two banks. I foresee that there will be a return of the €3.8 billion that went into Anglo Irish Bank. That is why I say it is the €10.8 billion plus €17 billion, which makes €27.8 billion, and this will yield a return. If the Deputy reads the script, and the questions and answers on the next few pages, it is very simple.
I thank Mr. Mathews for attending. I am sorry we did not get started on time. As we have another urgent meeting, we will look at inviting Mr. Mathews again.
I have another question, not in regard to Mr. Mathews but in regard to one of the banks referred to by him.
The meeting is concluded——
Excuse me. I want to make a brief point under any other business. Mr. Donal O'Connor, as the outgoing chairman of Anglo Irish Bank, promised this committee months ago to come back here to go through the figures.
We are dealing with that issue.
I will have to ask you again, Chairman. When will Mr. O'Connor return?
There is correspondence between Anglo Irish Bank and the committee.
When will Mr. O'Connor fulfil his promise to this committee? It is a very simple question. I have been waiting months to meet him again.
We have written to them on a number of occasions.
Can the Chairman, on our behalf, command his presence? It is a Dáil committee. He is still the chairman of the bank until Mr. Dukes takes up that office in July, as I understand the position. Mr. O'Connor needs to come back to this committee to take us through some of the issues he highlighted and the figures and indications he gave us before he leaves the service of the bank and of the State, when he will no longer necessarily be required to answer questions in a public forum. We are owed that as a finance committee.
I have heard the Deputy twice on the matter. I advised her that we will contact the bank on that point.
Mr. Peter Mathews
I thank the Chairman and the members for their attention. If I was a little passionate at times, I apologise, but it is with the best interests at heart of the country and of everybody who is doing their best. I am an optimist for Ireland but one can only be optimistic when one is realistic, truthful and properly equipped to do the job that is necessary to be done.
I thank Mr. Mathews.