Mr. Gerry Cross:

Customer protection is at the heart of this matter, our proposals and how we approach the regulation, supervision and enforcement of the financial services sector. In our view, our proposals are designed precisely to help address the issues the Chair identified. In short, they are basically saying we want to know who is responsible for what. There must be no more lack of clarity within a bank, insurance company or other type of firm regarding who is responsible for what areas and tasks. The Chair referred to banks circling the wagons. The proposals will make it more difficult to circle the wagons because we will be able to say the breach was in the bank's bailiwick, it is accountable for it and the question is whether all reasonable steps were taken. That is very important.

The proposal also sets out the expected standards. In terms of the interests of customers, the basic standard is that all those within financial firms must act honestly, professionally and with due diligence and integrity. There are additional standards at senior level, such as whether all reasonable steps have been taken to organise an area, oversee the people to whom responsibilities are delegated, and ensure compliance with regulations. It allows us to home in and identify where the issue lies.

The proposal is to simplify, unify and make more straightforward the ability to pursue individuals. No longer would we have to show first of all that the firm created a breach and then link to participation in it. Rather, we could simply say that the individual is at the heart of the breach. This regime is precisely what is needed to help address the concerns articulated by the Chair and it is reflective of our absolute commitment to the effective regulation and supervision of, and enforcement in respect of, the financial services sector.

The Chair mentioned the issue of insurance companies and I will address it briefly because, of course, the Central Bank is very involved with the work of the cost of insurance working group. We have also been very involved in the development of the claims information database for motor insurance.

That is up and running. Work is under way to assess the viability of such a framework for public liability and employer liability.

We have made good progress in establishing clarity around this. There is much work going on under Mr. Justice Nicholas Kearns and others on other aspects of this. It is a multifaceted piece of work and, at least from our perspective, the work we are doing in that space to try to bring more clarity is progressing well.