Professor Philip Lane:

There is supervision of all kinds of financial firms but the method by which global private equity firms with loan books in this country are supervised is in terms of consumer mortgages and new credit servicing, and there is a method by which to do that. Fundamentally, on the regulation of the banking system, Deputy Doherty is right: it is about protecting depositors. If a firm is financed by the world's financial system, it is not coming through the Irish banking system or other banking systems. Cerberus is not a bank, it raises its money through non-deposit forums. There are all kinds of regulations for public financial firms but privately-held firms choose to remain outside that.