Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

You say the IMF had no inkling of the indecisiveness and lack of firm engagement underlining the detailed interaction between the Financial Regulator and key financial institutions, problems that you and Professor Honohan discovered only later. Would it have been better if we had had a separate Financial Regulator? The IMF would then have been able to say "We met an institution that was not doing its job," rather than "We met a bit of an institution and some of it might have been doing its job but it was all okayed by the Central Bank." We have had some evidence that this task should not be performed by central banks.