Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Cross mentioned that by the end of September, the Central Bank had taken 144 enforcement actions and imposed fines amounting to more than €166.5 million under the ASP. Much of the discussion has been on the fact that individual accountability is a core focus of the Central Bank's work. As a number of the questions I had have already been asked, I would like to focus on the Cum-ex scandal that has been in the news recently. This involves billions of euro and several firms across Europe. I looked at the Companies Registration Office, CRO, database to see if any of the directors had been disqualified. While looking at the database, I noticed that some people are directors of more than 100 companies simultaneously and that some had more than 300 previous directorships. One person currently holds more than 150 directorships. Based on media reports, we are aware that a non-executive director of one of the funds had met officials from the Central Bank and had offered to resign at the time but was requested to stay on. I would be interested if Mr. Cross could advise about this. Given that a person can hold multiple directorships simultaneously, possibly involving hundreds of companies, is this conducive to a culture of high standards and an ability to perform fiduciary duties?