Mr. Aidan Carrigan:

I sympathise with the Deputy grappling with the detail of this as it is very complex. A number of European institutions have overlapping roles.

The decision making process at Europe is a co-decision between the Council and the Parliament. That is the trialogue process that brings together the Commission, the Council and the Parliament. It is the Commission, the Council and the Parliament, that trialogue, that will finally put in place the regulations and the law which will define how this new European Central Bank Supervisory Authority operates. The Supervisory Authority will take over day-to-day supervision on a consistent manner for all of the larger banks across Europe and a number of banks in each country. The Supervisory Authority will be accountable to the Parliament and to the Council for the way they do that. The Supervisory Authority within the ECB has not been created out of nothing. There is an actual supervisory board that will be running this, which is made up of the head of regulation of every supervisor in every member state that is involved. It is bringing together all the national expertise into this one entity.