Ms Derville Rowland:

We have an international facing dimension to our financial services sector. The sector is quite considerable and we have a large funds industry that sells investment products to consumers in other jurisdictions. It is important that those customers can have trust and confidence in the strength of the firms and the products they are buying. The regulation to which they are subject is a really important factor and that has to be sustainable for Ireland to be seen as a trusted regulatory authority.

Since the crisis there has been a flotilla of measures to strengthen the regulatory framework, through which many funds and financial services entities operate, to ensure that we have far superior regulatory frameworks in place and access to information. Mr. Sibley referenced our work in the international arena, which we take very seriously. We take part in the European supervisory authorities to make sure we have a convergent approach with others. In ESMA, we look very carefully at some of the issues, such as in the funds area, to make sure we have a high-quality approach that exactly reflects the European norms.

A significant number of regulations and laws were brought in after the crisis to strengthen the entire regulatory framework.