Professor Patrick Honohan:

I do not know the answer. Presumably it came not from the IFSC as much as from the local banks. This is normal in the context of regulation. It is normal but not good. I am trying to make distinctions here, not always successfully. It is right and proper in a changing financial environment for firms to say, "Look at this regulation - it is not working, you can't make it work. It is going to be a disaster". People do that all of the time. They have done it for my latest consultation on loan-to-value ratios.