How criticism is meant to sound

In Ireland we are often publicly coy about saying what we mean, in particular as a person departs or dies the tendency is to wax lyrical when during their time or tenure the opinion a person held wasn’t in line with the following statements.

In our firm we tell it like it is, we say exactly what we mean, no matter what, that is why when you look at the critiques in this article by Colm Kelpie about the departure of Central Bank Governor Patrick Honohan you see that we stick to our guns.

There is nothing fluffy in this…

Karl Deeter, Irish Mortgage Brokers: “Whatever people say about his performance as a governor, on the consumer protection side he oversaw some of the worst regulation in the modern western world, particularly the ban on repossessions, the unworkable code of conduct on mortgage arrears, and the fact that Ireland has a persistent arrears problem unlike any other developed country in the world. They show an unwillingness to deal with some of …

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Newstalk: Pat Kenny show with Dearbhail McDonald on Mortgages

Last Friday on Newstalk we were on the Pat Kenny Show where Dearbhail McDonald was hosting. We discussed mortgage caps, how they don’t work, certainly not in isolation and some of the downsides to a market when they are utilised as well as the negative impacts they can have on people.

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Rules, they apply to at least some of us…

Something that is sadly missing from the Patrick Neary involvement with Anglo is how the rules set up by a Regulator often apply to everybody bar them.

For instance, authorised firms are required to keep records for six years after the date of the transaction, the Central Bank not only didn’t keep records of the Anglo deal, they never made them to begin with it seems.

Here is a page of the various ‘codes’, you’ll note that none pertain the Central Bank, they don’t have any prescribed time frames to make responses, no service level agreement, no charter upon which to be externally judged. They have many pages on what everybody else must do, just none about themselves.

Chapter 11 of the Consumer Protection Code is solely dedicated to ‘keeping records’. It is safe to say that to an extent the financial services industry is the client of the Central Bank so why do they not keep records in the same manner as they firms they regulate must?

Failure results in sanctions (that means …

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