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Updated: 15.38
I’m very sorry for what happened and my role in these events. I know a lot of people were let down and feel very angry – deservedly so … I take personal responsibility for my actions and omissions.
THAT WAS THE apology given to the Irish people from former AIB chief executive Eugene Sheehy when he appeared before the Oireachtas banking inquiry today.
Sheehy, who was group CEO at the bank from 2005 to 2009, said he drew “no comfort from the extraneous factors” that caused the crisis and feels “deep disappointment” on a daily basis.
“There are many factors that contributed to the crisis. In my view an important factor was the degree to which decision makers became increasingly reliant on data driven, predictive risk models to guide our plans,” Sheehy stated.
I agree with a description offered by a colleague who reflecting on the crisis described our approach as a massive intellectual failure. This failure led to the triumph of models, consensus and market pressure over experience and common sense.
Sheehy said he felt the need to apologise because the bank “took too much risk in a sector that was toxic”, noting he “could have stopped it”.
He recalled what happened on the night of the bank guarantee in September 2008, noting he and his counterparts and Bank of Ireland had requested a meeting with the government.
At this meeting he said the two banks requested a four-bank guarantee, but not the blanket €440 billion guarantee that was ultimately provided.
He said he and other bankers were at government buildings for six hours on that night but were dismissed several times, noting: ”At 3.30am we were told we were no longer needed.”
Sheehy said the guarantee was needed to avoid “panic on the streets”.
Senator Susan O’Keeffe asked Sheehy why the banks had requested a meeting with the government, rather than the other way around.
He said banks wanted an urgent meeting because 29 September 2008 had been “the most tumultuous day in the history of international financial services”.
Sheehy said a four-bank guarantee would have been the “default option”, with Anglo/Irish Nationwide being wound up over the weekend.
He said he only learned that Anglo/Nationwide were included in the guarantee when a government statement was published the next morning, adding that he “could not understand” why this move had been taken.
When O’Keeffe asked Sheehy if he or other bankers had complained about this, he said they had “no choice” but to accept the government’s decision.
Sheehy said that AIB was solvent on the night of the guarantee and that he can’t remember making comments attributed to him on the night of the guarantee where he reportedly said the bank was facing bankruptcy.
Sheehy’s predecessor Michael Buckley also apologised to the committee, stating:
I deeply regret what happened at the damage it caused to so many.
He said that when he retired in 2005, he had “no premonition” of what was coming and that AIB would need taxpayers’ money to stay afloat.
Sheehy admitted that the bank was in a sound position when he took over, noting that, when the crash hit, AIB was “overexposed” in terms of property lending – leading to a €21 billion bailout.
When questioned about his salary – which totalled €2.1 million in 2007 - he said “in hindsight” he was probably overpaid but noted that nobody disagreed with the salaries at the time.
Sheehy’s pension is €250,000 – of which he has returned some. Buckley didn’t reveal what his pension is.
O’Keeffe asked Sheehy if he was ever in the infamous Fianna Fáil tent at the Galway Race. He said the only time he was at the races was in 1969, when he “was a young fella”.
Outgoing CEO
AIB’s outgoing CEO David Duffy said that restructuring the bank since taking over the reins in 2011 was a “daunting task” as it was in a “significantly challenged state”.
Duffy had worked overseas for years before being asked to return to Ireland at the end of 2011 to become AIB’s chief.
He said that he and then chairman David Hodgkinson, who joined in late 2010, set about a daunting task that involved a radical restructuring of the bank and its balance sheet.
Duffy said the pair had to:
He noted that AIB has returned to profit and stability, saying ht expects the bank “will be in a position to return capital to the Irish state over time subject to economic conditions and the wishes of our majority shareholder”.
Duffy said the bank took the approach that SMEs should only be protected when the business is viable.
In terms of mortgages, he said AIB wanted to keep borrowers in their homes where possible. He said sometimes they found it better for borrowers to be in “a suitable home”, which was not necessarily their own.
Duffy said mortgage write-downs made sense in certain cases, giving an example of a borrower who had bought a home for €400,000 that is now worth about €100,000 on the market. He said in an instance like this it is better to renegotiate down the borrower’s loan to something like €220,000.
In terms of Nama, Duffy said that from his own involvement with the organisation it was “extremely helpful to us in the scale of what we had to do” and “on balance, beneficial”.
Duffy will soon leave AIB to join Clydesdale Bank in Glasgow.
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The Taoiseach NOW thinks it’s time for sanctions as the USA is rethinking it’s murderous support of Israel.
Why can’t you lead instead of being led !
@David: Our hands are tied because our membership of the EU means we cannot unilaterally sanction these terrorist states. If we want to be serious about being a republic then we need to renegotiate our position within the(increasingly militaristic and corporate captured) EU. The Irish people didn’t vote for joining an entity that supports(or turns a closed eye to) genocide and now we need a conversation on whether our membership should involve bespoke measures that would allow us act according to our republican values IMO
@Sean: Supports Genocide lol – what a muppet.
@Sean: So much killing across the world Sean but see nothing from you about most of it – you are very selective – so by your own logic you also supoort genocide… or at the very least are happy to turn a blind eye to it when it suits your narrative huh!
@Podge: Yes, Israel has been conducting genocide on the Palestinian people.
Perhaps you should look up the definitions of genocide.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: you’re getting mixed up, Hamas commited genocide and rape on innocent civilians on Oct 7 and continue to do so
@Sean: There was a bill that passed through our courts, twice. That bill says we can “boycott” all products from Israel and any other colonized state. What are the EU gonna do, if someone stood up and said we are applying our own sanctions.
@Sean: and yes there does need to be a conversation, but I don’t see anyone with a spine in a senior position that would step forward and be counted.
Why do we have to refer to X as formerly twitter? It is X
@You’re Not Serious: Because “X” can be anything.
@Tezmond McVicar: I’d say you had a nightmare learning the alphabet
@Sean: just call it twitter coz that’s what it is.
@donal O’brien: fine by me Donal. Burst on
@Tezmond McVicar: that’s true. I put in x videos and something came up I didn’t expect or did I ………. Hmmmmm
@pBDSiMMi: Hahahaha. Just googled it. Give up that aul divilment!
@Sean: I’ve no idea what you are talking about …….
@Tezmond McVicar: Y ??????
@Tezmond McVicar: I heard tell that X marks the spot.
@Tezmond McVicar: what I am more amazed with is that twitter users were never referred to as “twits”.
Smiling While Gaza burns ,and FFG harbouring the Israeli Propaganda ambassador in her mansion in Dublin as voted for in the Dail
@Kevin O Brien: Here you are messing around on the internet while Gaza burns…
@Kevin O Brien: go forth to the front line with phone in hand
@Podge: i have Zero power unlike the people in Question
The Muslims only came into the area in 636.
During the Iron Age, two related Israelite kingdoms, Israel and Judah, controlled much of Palestine, while the Philistines occupied its southern coast. The kingdom gradually became a vassal of Rome, which annexed the area in 63 BCE. Roman Judea was troubled by large-scale Jewish revolts, which Rome answered with by destroying Jerusalem and the Second Jewish Temple.
In the 4th century, as the Roman Empire christened, Palestine became a center of Christianity, attracting pilgrims, monks and scholars. Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant in 636–641, several Muslim ruling dynasties succeeded each other as they wrestled control of Palestine: the Rashiduns; the Umayyads, who built the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem
@thomas molloy: So…
@thomas molloy: Ah, here you are back – with your pseudo history this time – to try to justify the existence of the modern state of Israel, and its appalling atrocities on the Palestinian people.
The Palestinian people are semites.
They have been in that region since time immemorial.
They changed their religion, some to Christianity, most later to Islam.
(Just as we changed our religion to Chritianity.)
No one who claims descendancy from those who left these shores long ago has any right to return.
Any right to return and attack our government, set up their own state on our homeland, drive us off our homeland into enclaves.
No more than do the Israeli colonial invader of Palestine.
@thomas molloy: Heavy taxes on agricultural land forced many Jews to migrate from rural areas to towns. Social and economic discrimination caused significant Jewish emigration from Palestine, and Muslim civil wars in the 8th and 9th centuries pushed many Jews out of the country. All killing should stop to help the populations live together.
@thomas molloy: Jews have had a continuous presence in the land of Israel.
While the Romans expelled the majority of Jews in 70 CE, the Jewish people have always been present in the land of Israel. A portion of the Jewish population remained in Israel throughout the years of Jewish exile while the rest settled around the world and became the Jewish diaspora. In particular, Jewish communities existed throughout much of this period in what is known as the Four Holy Cities: Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed (Tzfat), and Tiberias. Jerusalem is the most sacred, known for the Western Wall. Hebron is associated with the Cave of the Patriarchs, the traditional burial site of several important Biblical figures. Safed became the center of Jewish mysticism in the sixteenth century.
@thomas molloy: Bottom line …The State of Israel only exists because the British drew a line in the sand.
@thomas molloy: Yes, Jews have had a continuous existence in the land we call Palestine.
As have all other Palestinians.
That does not give Jews from other lands any right to invade Palestine, engage in terrorism, drive the Palestinian people off their land, and establish a state in the homeland of the Palestinian people, depriving those people of their lands, their homes, and their future.
Israel is the fruit of the poisoned tree.
It has no right to exist.
@Donal Desmond: Yes, while also creating a far larger Muslim Palestine called Jordan. The India Pakistan partition is another example.
people being butchered for days n u have these 2 fools chekin hands and smiling ..
Didn’t the UK abstain from the vote?
A uselss irish tory meets a disgraced english tory
You never know who you’d meet in London!
2 complete vvankers!
Voted in favour in General Assembly but abstained in Security Council ???
@Seanfhear míshásta: Look up the Sunak families conflict of interest with company Infosys and BP gas exploration in Gaza, all you need to know…
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