Dr. Donal Donovan:

The merits of the structure were much debated in the history associated with this. There was the McDowell report and then there was an uneasy compromise which led to the architecture that prevailed until 2009. This was messy, but the Honohan report makes a fairly strong argument that, while it was inconvenient and caused some complications, it was not a significant factor underlying the regulatory failure and Central Bank oversight failure. With regard to the IMF assessment, it did meet, very extensively, with the Financial Regulator component in Dame Street, and much of its detailed analysis would have been based on data provided by the Financial Regulator. They would have discussed the state of the banks. I am not sure the messy division of labour really lay at the heart of the weakness of their assessment. There were other reasons, which I refer to in the statement. That said, I think we all know it is much better to have the present structure, which came into place soon after, in 2009 - just one institution.