Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis is now in public session. I welcome everyone present to the fourth public hearing of the joint committee. There will be two distinct parts to today's proceedings. Later, we will hear from Professor Philip Lane of Trinity College, Dublin, on the banking crisis and economic and monetary union but first we will hear from Mr. Klaus Regling on A Preliminary Report on the Sources of Ireland's Banking Crisis.

Mr. Regling is the first managing director of the European Stability Mechanism. He is also chief executive officer, CEO, of the European Financial Stability Facility, a position he has held since the creation of the latter in June 2010. Mr. Regling has worked for 38 years as an economist in senior positions in the public and private sectors in Europe, Asia and the US, including a decade with the IMF in Washington and Jakarta and a further decade with the German Ministry of Finance, where he prepared economic and monetary union in Europe. From 2001 to 2008 he was director general for Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission. During the period 2008 to 2009, he spent a year at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore where he researched financial and monetary integration in Asia. In February 2010, the then Minister for Finance, the late Deputy Brian Lenihan, requested Mr. Regling to conduct a preliminary investigation into the crisis in the banking system in Ireland. The report relating to that investigation was published on 31 May 2010. Said report was co-authored by Mr. Max Watson, who sadly passed away in December. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam. I remind members that while Mr. Regling is managing director of the European Stability Mechanism and CEO of the European Financial Stability Facility, he has come before us only to discuss his report.

I wish to advise the witness that by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, he is protected by absolute privilege in respect of his evidence to this committee. However, if he is directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continues to so do, he will be entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of his evidence. He is directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and - as he has been informed previously - witnesses are asked to refrain from discussing named individuals in this phase of the inquiry. Members are reminded of the long-standing ruling of the Chair to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I welcome Mr. Regling and invite him to make his opening remarks.