Mr. Vasileios Madouros:

Maybe I will cover this. First, I understand why this question is being asked. I share the horror and the sadness about the loss of life that we are seeing in Gaza and the destruction that we are seeing in Gaza in the Middle East.

We have been asked many questions on this issue by Oireachtas Members. There was a Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach hearing specifically on this issue a few weeks ago. We have been asked a number of follow-up questions. We have been transparent, provided the answers and published them on our website.

Let me clarify what our responsibilities and role are in this area in response to the question because many not be as close to this issue. One of the functions that has been conferred upon us by law is to be the competent authority under the so-called "prospectus regulation". This is a disclosure regime that sets out the requirement on the information that issuers of securities must disclose to potential prospective investors. Under that regulation, we are responsible for assessing whether a prospectus has been drawn up in compliance with the relevant legal requirements. I am sorry this will get more technical, but this is a technical issue. Specifically, we are required to approve a prospectus where it meets the standards of completeness, consistency and comprehensibility under the legislation. It is a very specific, narrow role. The legislation is clear that by approving a bond prospector, the competent authority does not endorse the issuer of the securities; rather, it means the Central Bank, or the competent authority is satisfied that the issuer has disclosed the required information in the required manner.

It is important to be clear about what we do not do because some of the public discourse on this has not been fully accurate. We do not issue, we do not sell, we do not trade and we do lease these bonds. The Central Bank does not have the mandate or power to decide to impose sanctions for breaches or alleged breaches of international law. The EU implements sanctions adopted by the UN and adopts its own sanctions in certain circumstances. As happened in the case of Russia, if sanctions are adopted, they are implemented, including as relevant to our mandate. At this time, the EU has not adopted sanctions against Israel.