Ms Derville Rowland:

There is a subtlety here. The system works. These are called pre-approval control functions. There is a requirement to get the permission of the Central Bank before a person can take up certain very senior roles in various companies. One can decide one would like to hire a person, but one cannot hire him or her until the person has undergone the Central Bank's stop-and-check test and the bank is satisfied that the person is competent, capable and has the requisite integrity, which is really important. We might have a concern and we expect that concern to be answered, because we have lots of sources of information, either because the person has already been working in the system or we get information from other regulators, the newspapers, Oireachtas committees or any source of information through our enforcement investigations. We then hold what we call a challenge interview. The person will be clear that we have concerns as we will have told the person what they are about. The process is private. We get ready to challenge the candidates. Some people come up and attend the interview and they are surprised we are so ready for them because we will have transcripts of previous issues and we will put documentation to them. Some people get so concerned that before or after the interview they withdraw the application and they do not allow it to go to a decision because it is a very serious thing for a negative decision to be in place against one as a senior person. A feature of the system not just in Ireland but in many jurisdictions is that people withdraw silently from the system. I might ask Ms Cunningham to say a bit more about the import of that.