A few quotes from the banking reports

Governor of the Central Bank Patrick Honohan said;

"Budgetary policies contributed significantly to the economic overheating, relying to a clearly unsustainable extent on the construction sector and other transient sources for Govt revenue. This helped create a climate of public opinion which was led to believe that the party could last forever."

"The failures of the central bank may have contributed to the crisis but were not fundamental. Nor was the failure of Lehman Brothers decisive."

"It is clear that a major failure in terms of bank regulation and the maintenance of financial stability occurred."

"The major responsibility lies with the directors and senior management of the banks that got into trouble."

"Over-reliance on cheap external borrowing greatly increased banks vulnerability to changing market sentiment and ultimately triggered their downfall."

"Anglo Irish Bank and Irish nationwide were well on the road to insolvency."

"Auditors and accountants should have been more alert to weaknesses in the banks lending and financial position."


Klaus Regling and Max Watson said;

"Irelands banking crisis bears the clear imprint of global influences, yet it was in crucial ways "home made"."

"Fiscal policy heightened the vulnerability of the economy."

"Bank governance and risk management were weak."

"Official policies and bank governance failings seriously exacerbated Irelands credit and property boom, and depleted its fiscal and banking buffers when the crisis stuck."

"Tax concessions [tax breaks to developers] seem to have been granted on an ad-hoc basis in a not fully transparent way."

A significant shift in the structure tax revenue made the Budget more vulnerable."