If Irish Independent columnists get to write history it certainly will.
Former press officer reprises his role.
>For Mary Harney, the Progressive Democrat founder and part of the Irish political landscape across four decades, the economic crash was largely driven by various financial regulators not doing their jobs. Various governments she worked in strengthened finance and banking regulation.
Like, this is as close to an out and out lie as you’ll get.
The root of the failure was in the establishment in 2003 of the Financial Regulator. It was an ill-concieved idea at best, and a deliberate attempt to undermine what were seen as burdensome regulatory structures at worst. The Financial Regulator was never fit for purpose, nor was it provided with a structure or the resources that would enable it to be. That was a decision of Government, much as they then want to blame the people who worked there. It was like setting up a factory in a dangerous way, and then blaming the factory managers when accidents happened.
The idea that nobody saw this as a problem is bogus, it was highlighted in stark terms that almost seem prophetic if you read them now. Take this paragraph from Richard Bruton’s contribution to the Bill that established the Financial Regulator at the earliest stage in the Dáil:
>There is real conflict here. Prudential interests demand that the security of an institution is protected by large profit margins and they are not too fussy about tax issues or consumer interests as we have seen in the past. This Bill does not address tax issues, which I thought it would. Consumer protection interests are very different. They want to see lower profit margins, high efficiency, very contestable markets with lots of turnover and much activity. Very different objectives are being pursued by the two bodies the Minister is trying to thrust together and there is a conflict of interest. This is not bogus, which even the Central Bank would recognise. I would have expected the McDowell group to find out if the merging of consumer protection with regulatory provision was best practice. There is an appendix to its report which reviews what happens in other countries and it is staggering. The group came up with evidence that in 16 of 19 countries looked at no significant element of consumer protection law was given to the authority responsible for prudential regulation
>. . .
>The Minister is trying to merge two areas that are incompatible. Creating a one-stop-shop would be valid only if there was genuine synergy between the two tasks that are undertaken. Such synergy does not exist and others share my view in that regard. Professor Kinsella, a colleague of the Minister, has argued trenchantly that there is no such synergy. There are conflicting regulatory objectives between consumer and prudential protection; limited synergy in terms of the skills that are needed; moral hazards and impediments; and different timescales to which both work. He made a persuasive case that the merger of regulation with consumer protection damages both and does not enhance them. That argument should be assessed in a manner that has not occurred to date.
>. . .
>The attempt to merge two functions that are really quite different has resulted in the loss of key elements of good governance – simplicity, transparency and accountability. It has numerous interlocking and overlapping structures that give neither simplicity, transparency nor accountability. We will live to regret that we took this road and we will spend some time unpicking this omelette.
3 articles from John on Cowen & Co in the past few days, at least the brown envelopes are back for the boys in the PR Department
Didn’t they totally rape the HSE by centralising everything? That’s what I remember them for.
Why is Cowen all over the news this week? Dick Spring as well. Get ta fuck.
There’s a difference between the inevitable recession – we’d been flying so high for so long – and the complete collapse of banking that happened.
The boom would have ended anyway, but it was the complete collapse of the American banks that made it the whopper recession that was a million times worse.
All the developing countries in the eurozone (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain) were stretched so far because we were playing catch-up in terms of infrastructure, quality of housing, healthcare facilities, a million different things.
In a mature country like (say) Germany, young people have debt that they pay off as they get older.
But in the PIGS countries, everyone of all ages had debt as they improved their quality of life. Young people bought houses, but middle-aged people and older people expanded their small homes with an extra bedroom, or got proper windows for the first time, or got their first car. And the state built a ridiculous amount of infrastructure.
Ireland was a really, really poor country before the boom. Nobody knew how to handle money, including the banks who’d never had the institution systems in place to manage it, because there’d never been a reason to.
Of those 4 countries, Ireland is by MILES the best-off today, because our state is actually pretty well functioning.
I feel like at best Cowen is a Greek tragedy. By many accounts he’s a decent man but he was so incredibly out of his depth. Bit like W. Bush.
Someone started into the wine early at indo media.
Me so Harney
Brian Cowen being grilled by Jeremy Paxman….
Pure gold!
Do the Irish Independent politics writers openly smoke crack cocaine and meth?
12 comments
If Irish Independent columnists get to write history it certainly will.
Former press officer reprises his role.
>For Mary Harney, the Progressive Democrat founder and part of the Irish political landscape across four decades, the economic crash was largely driven by various financial regulators not doing their jobs. Various governments she worked in strengthened finance and banking regulation.
Like, this is as close to an out and out lie as you’ll get.
The root of the failure was in the establishment in 2003 of the Financial Regulator. It was an ill-concieved idea at best, and a deliberate attempt to undermine what were seen as burdensome regulatory structures at worst. The Financial Regulator was never fit for purpose, nor was it provided with a structure or the resources that would enable it to be. That was a decision of Government, much as they then want to blame the people who worked there. It was like setting up a factory in a dangerous way, and then blaming the factory managers when accidents happened.
The idea that nobody saw this as a problem is bogus, it was highlighted in stark terms that almost seem prophetic if you read them now. Take this paragraph from Richard Bruton’s contribution to the Bill that established the Financial Regulator at the earliest stage in the Dáil:
>There is real conflict here. Prudential interests demand that the security of an institution is protected by large profit margins and they are not too fussy about tax issues or consumer interests as we have seen in the past. This Bill does not address tax issues, which I thought it would. Consumer protection interests are very different. They want to see lower profit margins, high efficiency, very contestable markets with lots of turnover and much activity. Very different objectives are being pursued by the two bodies the Minister is trying to thrust together and there is a conflict of interest. This is not bogus, which even the Central Bank would recognise. I would have expected the McDowell group to find out if the merging of consumer protection with regulatory provision was best practice. There is an appendix to its report which reviews what happens in other countries and it is staggering. The group came up with evidence that in 16 of 19 countries looked at no significant element of consumer protection law was given to the authority responsible for prudential regulation
>. . .
>The Minister is trying to merge two areas that are incompatible. Creating a one-stop-shop would be valid only if there was genuine synergy between the two tasks that are undertaken. Such synergy does not exist and others share my view in that regard. Professor Kinsella, a colleague of the Minister, has argued trenchantly that there is no such synergy. There are conflicting regulatory objectives between consumer and prudential protection; limited synergy in terms of the skills that are needed; moral hazards and impediments; and different timescales to which both work. He made a persuasive case that the merger of regulation with consumer protection damages both and does not enhance them. That argument should be assessed in a manner that has not occurred to date.
>. . .
>The attempt to merge two functions that are really quite different has resulted in the loss of key elements of good governance – simplicity, transparency and accountability. It has numerous interlocking and overlapping structures that give neither simplicity, transparency nor accountability. We will live to regret that we took this road and we will spend some time unpicking this omelette.
3 articles from John on Cowen & Co in the past few days, at least the brown envelopes are back for the boys in the PR Department
Didn’t they totally rape the HSE by centralising everything? That’s what I remember them for.
Why is Cowen all over the news this week? Dick Spring as well. Get ta fuck.
There’s a difference between the inevitable recession – we’d been flying so high for so long – and the complete collapse of banking that happened.
The boom would have ended anyway, but it was the complete collapse of the American banks that made it the whopper recession that was a million times worse.
All the developing countries in the eurozone (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain) were stretched so far because we were playing catch-up in terms of infrastructure, quality of housing, healthcare facilities, a million different things.
In a mature country like (say) Germany, young people have debt that they pay off as they get older.
But in the PIGS countries, everyone of all ages had debt as they improved their quality of life. Young people bought houses, but middle-aged people and older people expanded their small homes with an extra bedroom, or got proper windows for the first time, or got their first car. And the state built a ridiculous amount of infrastructure.
Ireland was a really, really poor country before the boom. Nobody knew how to handle money, including the banks who’d never had the institution systems in place to manage it, because there’d never been a reason to.
Of those 4 countries, Ireland is by MILES the best-off today, because our state is actually pretty well functioning.
I feel like at best Cowen is a Greek tragedy. By many accounts he’s a decent man but he was so incredibly out of his depth. Bit like W. Bush.
Someone started into the wine early at indo media.
Me so Harney
Brian Cowen being grilled by Jeremy Paxman….
Pure gold!
Do the Irish Independent politics writers openly smoke crack cocaine and meth?
Better than Martin, tbh