Mr. Gary Tobin:

What is important about the senior executive accountability regime, SEAR, is that it will provide clarity to the Central Bank as to which individuals within a financial institution are explicitly responsible for what. It will also make it clear how decisions are made within firms in order to encourage individuals to take on greater responsibility for their actions. Throughout the financial crisis there may have been a perception that either everybody was at fault or that nobody was and, therefore, nobody was at fault. As witnessed with the senior managers regime in the UK, the move to SEAR has made who is responsible for what far more explicit. If one wants to put sanctions against individuals in place and if one wants those sanctions to stick and to be legally robust, it must be very clear who is responsible for what.