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

With members' permission, I now call the committee back into public session. Is that agreed? Agreed. And the Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis now resuming in public session, I can remind members and those in the public Gallery to ensure that their mobile devices are switched off. Today we are now continuing our hearings with senior officials in the Central Bank of Ireland and Financial Regulator and, our next session, we will now hear from Mr. Cyril Roux, deputy governor of the financial regulation, Central Bank.

Mr. Cyril Roux was appointed to the position of deputy governor of the Central Bank on 1 October 2013 with responsibility for financial regulation. Prior to taking up the role, he served as first deputy secretary general at the French insurance supervisory authority. He also served as a board member of the ANC, the French accounting standard-setting authority. Mr. Roux, you're very welcome to the committee today.

Before hearing from the witness, I wish to advise the witness that by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to this committee. If you are directed by the Chair to cease giving evidence in relation to a particular matter and you continue to do so, you are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of your evidence. You're directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and I would remind members and those present that there are currently criminal proceedings ongoing and further criminal proceedings are scheduled during the lifetime of the inquiry, which overlap with the subject matter of the inquiry. Therefore, the utmost caution should be taken not to prejudice those proceedings.

In addition, there are particular obligations of professional secrecy on officers of the Central Bank in respect of confidential information that they have come across in the course of their duties. This stems from European and Irish law, including section 33AK of the Central Bank Act 1942. The banking inquiry also has obligations of professional secrecy in terms of some of the information which has been provided to it by the Central Bank. These obligations have been taken into account by the committee and will affect the questions asked and the answers which can be lawfully given in today's proceedings. In addition, it will mean that some information can be dealt with on a summary or aggregate basis only, such that individual institutions will not be identifiable.

Members of the public are reminded that photography is prohibited in the committee room. To assist the smooth running of the inquiry, we will display certain documents on the screens here in the committee room. For those sitting in the Gallery, these documents will be displayed on the screens to your left and right. Members of the public and journalists are reminded that these documents are confidential and they should not publish any of the documents so displayed. The witness has been directed to attend this meeting of the joint inquiry into the banking crisis and you have been furnished with booklets of core documents. These are before the committee and will be relied upon in questioning and form part of the evidence of the inquiry. So, with that said, if I can now ask the clerk to administer the affirmation to you.