Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Governor. I will start with questions on market-based finance, popularly referred to as shadow banking. I welcome the Central Bank turning its attention to it. Arguably this is late, but it is better than never. I understand that Mr. Makhlouf is just commencing his work on this and that his answers might be provisional - or he might prefer to not answer - but I will ask the questions anyway. In his opinion, what accounts for the very outsized nature of the sector in Ireland, which is reported as 13 times GDP and the fourth biggest shadow banking sector in the world? Mr. Makhlouf may have read the paper by Professor Jim Stewart and Cillian Doyle that says a reason for the size of the shadow banking sector here is the nature of Ireland's corporate tax laws, which ensure the profits of special purpose entities are zero or close to zero.