International Currency Exchange
IBOA welcomes cross-party support for comprehensive banking inquiry
Issued : 18 January 2010
IBOA The Finance Union has welcomed the growing cross-party support for a comprehensive inquiry into what went wrong with the Irish banking system. The Union's General Secretary, Larry Broderick, has said that such an investigation should not only indicate the major shortcomings of policy and practice in the recent past - but also highlight important lessons for the future.
"The general public are entitled to know why banks operating in Ireland behaved so recklessly as to imperil the economy," said Larry Broderick. "Thousands of ordinary bank employees are also entitled to know how this terrible situation evolved which has the potential for ordinary bank officials to pay the ultimate price through the potential of thousands of jobs losses in the industry into the future. a substantial failure of leadership by senior executives has already cost thousands of jobs in the financial services sector and placed many others at risk.
"Within the banking sector, those who bear the most responsibility for creating the crisis have so far been cushioned from its worst impact - while the frontline staff who have had no responsibility for recklessness are bearing the brunt of the consequences.
"Furthermore, it is clear to us, as the union representing the ordinary staff working in these institutions, that although the recent culture of banking has been identified by many commentators as playing a significant role in the financial crisis, senior figures in the industry remain largely in denial to judge by their current actions.
"The banking crisis has resulted from a widespread systemic failure - involving not just the financial institutions, themselves, but also the public agencies charged with their supervision and regulation - and indeed the political framework within which those supervisory agencies were established," he said.
"The failure of regulation not only concerns the activities of the various agencies involved with this task but also reflects the resources allocated to them and the legislative framework within which they were required to function," he declared.
"While specific investigations into particular aspects of the crisis are under way involving the Gardaí and the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, by their very nature these will not be taking the comprehensive approach necessary to get to grips with the collective failure at the heart of the current financial crisis.
"We need a broadly-based inquiry to identify the important wider lessons that must be learned to prevent a recurrence of this systemic failure in the future.
"One of the key objectives of this inquiry should be to establish public policy on the future direction of the financial services sector - which could not only address the position of Irish-owned banks but also consider the role of foreign-owned institutions operating in Ireland," said the IBOA leader, "especially in view of the major job reductions announced recently by the two largest foreign-owned banks operating in the Republic."
