As far as the past is concerned, it is conventional to assume that, in the recent words of Judge Richard Posner, applied to the US regulatory agencies in the run-up to their own crisis, “ignorance and inattention” were at the heart of regulatory failure. Whatever else about that assessment, it hardly represents an explanation.
Nor is it credible that a few simple rules like “no 100% mortgages” would have prevented the disaster that has occurred. In seeking a deeper understanding of why things went wrong, I have been struck by the disruptive effect in Ireland of the attempt to adopt the new international fashion in supervisory practice that emerged in the late 1990s.