Mr. Domhnall Cullinan:

On the question of alarm bells sounding, the Central Bank requires non-life undertakings to provide the bank with an annual statement of actuarial opinion which opines on whether the company has made adequate provision in its reserves. As referred to in my opening statement, that statement was provided to us by Milliman, a well-respected global actuarial consulting firm. If a signing actuary is unable to provide an unqualified opinion to us, the actuary must act as a whistleblower and inform the Central Bank. At no point did we receive a whistleblower report. PricewaterhouseCoopers was the auditor. It is part of the work of any auditor to audit the work done by the signing actuary. PwC raised some concerns regarding the difference in the estimates - to which I referred in my statement - but equally, PwC was willing to sign off on the reserves on the basis that these were, in its view, within a range of best estimates. While I am very conscious there were rumours about the performance of the company and that people were concerned, very few came forward to the Central Bank to provide any concrete evidence. Our safeguards include the statement of actuarial opinion and this was being returned to us as an unqualified opinion. The United Kingdom's Financial Services Authority raised some concerns with us about the firm, but when we requested the provision of specific data, it was unable to provide any. We had a good level of engagement with the FSA because Quinn Insurance had a branch in Manchester and also a presence in the North of Ireland.

I have referred to the arrangements for the future such as the new engagement model with the firms. Our powers have been greatly extended by means of the Central Bank Reform Act 2010 which provided the bank with new powers with regard to fitness and probity. It also amended the Insurance Act 1989 to allow authorised officers other than employees of the Central Bank to be called upon to carry out investigations on behalf of the bank. Further powers for the bank are planned in the Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) Bill which is currently before the House. This will provide even further powers with regard to what we call skilled persons reports whereby the bank can commission another party to carry out an investigation on its behalf, the cost of which is charged to the firm under investigation.

In other words, significant additional measures have been and will be taken.