Dr. Donal Donovan:

There are 26 seats on the executive board. Six or seven of those are occupied by an individual country - that is to say, the US has a seat, along with France, Germany, Japan, Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. The list has varied slightly over time. There are, of course, 187 members in the IMF, so the rest of the countries group themselves into constituencies. The chair is occupied by a representative of that constituency. Ireland has always been in a constituency with Canada and a number of Caribbean countries. The head of the constituency is the representative of the Government of Canada, who sits on the board. If he or she is not available for whatever reason, then the alternate executive director, which by tradition and agreement has always been an Irish person, sits there instead. The alternative executive director is appointed by the Irish authorities. It is a political appointment in that sense. It has nothing to do with the staff - people like me. The tradition in Ireland has always been that this rotates between a Central Bank person and a Department of Finance person. For example, the present alternative executive director is Mr. Michael McGrath, who I am sure is well known to the committee. He is a former senior Department of Finance official. Before that it was Ms Mary O'Dea, who was a former consumer director of the Central Bank.