Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

Okay, like, I'm sure the reason that people might wonder and be worried was that evidence was given here and, indeed, you referred to it in your own first report on the banking crisis, Governor, that a reason advanced for so-called light-touch regulation was because of the Irish Financial Services Centre. So that Irish institutions' regulations wouldn't be heavier regulated in case the IFSC was made to look like an offshore island speculators' paradise or whatever they do on those offshore islands, right. So the question ... and, as you know, The New York Timeslabelled some of what was going on as Ireland being "the Wild West of European finance". The question is ... the number of staff in the regulatory system has not increased anything to the same extent as the funds or even perhaps the amount of funds and the actual funding institutions. So are you confident that the Irish regulatory system knows what is going on in those particular institutions to head off any potential disaster for the future?