Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Cross for his presentation. I have a number of questions on the proposals the Central Bank is coming forward with and I will come back to them on Brexit later. If the Central Bank's proposals were implemented in full today and the tracker scandal broke tomorrow, how would things be different? Do any of the Central Bank's proposals seek jail sentences for breaches of these rules or did the Central Bank seek same in any engagement with the Department of Finance? Does the Central Bank believe that multi-party action or class action suits have a role in empowering working people to take on the banks? On bonus pay, which is unfortunately back on the agenda, is there any evidence that a bonus culture can lead to recklessness? How can this be managed or can it be managed at all? Why does the Central Bank have faith in the banking industry's Irish Banking Culture Board to deliver change? Is the lesson of the past decade or so that bankers do not act in the best interests of wider society and that while there is a group of them together in a room, this fact could be multiplied in its effect?

I will have a final question on Brexit that we can come back to afterwards. The Central Bank has answered some of that question but as the Central Bank has alluded to, Brexit has resulted in a large number of firms and employees setting up operations here, particularly in Dublin. For example, Barclays received approval from the British High Courts to move €190 billion of assets to Ireland. Bank of America Merrill Lynch also transferred €50 billion worth of assets to this jurisdiction in recent months. This comes in addition to a swathe of other financial and legal firms moving their operations here as a result of Brexit. IDA Ireland has said that last year alone it received 55 new investments as a result of Brexit, bringing in 4,500 additional jobs to Ireland in major financial and legal firms such as Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and DLA Piper. Some of these investments bring complex funds and asset portfolios with them to the value of hundreds of billions of euros.

Do the witnesses believe the Central Bank has enough resources to robustly monitor these new companies and their assets?