An expert in bank regulation says he wants to see bankers brought to court.

Professor Edward Kane says public prosecutions are the only way to make sure bankers don't become reckless again in future.

Professor Kane is giving evidence at the Oireachtas Banking Inquiry this morning.

He says any new system of bank regulation will only work if bankers will face personal consequences for breaking the rules.

"If they [regulatprs] do not set up sanctions that punish individuals for acts of wilful and complicit safety net theft, we are bound to get more wrongdoing in the future," he said.

He added that this was the case "no matter what regulators finally do with their traditional tools such as capital and liquidity requirements".

"I believe there is great value in prosecuting violators in open court," he stated.

"The public needs to understand how much managers benefit when the burdens of the corporate finds and admissions they negotiate serve principally to punish shareholders, instead of naming and sanctioning individual managers."

He also told the inquiry that Anglo Irish Bank had clearly become "too big to fail" and that the bank should have been nationalised sooner in order to limit the cost to the public of the bank guarantee.