Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

When the Minister is carrying out this cost-benefit analysis within the Departments, might I suggest that the Department of Finance lay down the criteria so that there would be consistency between all the Departments in how they carry out the reviews and that there will not be different forms of evaluation?

The Minister strayed into other territory and made a comment on regulation in the future. The Irish Stock Exchange was before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Economic Regulatory Affairs today because it came to notice that in all transactions since 1 November 2007 no one was regulating complaints being made against stock brokers by non-consumers, which would be organisations with greater than €3 million in turnover, typically credit unions. The MiFID Act does not fit that criteria and I wonder if the Minister was aware of that fact. Certainly, it has left a vacuum, at least since February 2008, when the Irish Stock Exchange indicated to the Financial Regulator that it felt it did not have powers in this area.

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