Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I apologise, Chairman. This has been happening continually. There was blatant political imposition of Governors onto what was the old Financial Regulator and the old Central Bank. There is no question that this went on. Indeed, it was partly responsible for the crisis we found ourselves in, because these guys did not know what was going on. It was one of the principal causes of the crash, although there were lots of others. If we have a regulator in which key personnel are asleep on the job and people are not appointed on the basis of expertise, this is the sort of thing that happens.

The confidence we expect from global investors has been lost because we have failed to recover from the appalling situation where people were appointed to the boards of banks on the basis that they were part of a global magic circle. They, too, were asleep on the job and thereby contributed to the crisis. The problem today is that this has not changed. Month after month, we see the usual suspects - I will not mention any names - appointed to the boards of Bank of Ireland, Allied Irish Banks and other institutions. We see people who got off those boards some years ago coming back, with political approval, and being given appointments.

One sees it on the board of Bank of Ireland, AIB and Irish Life which have what are called "public interest directors" who are basically political stooges being put, and kept, on these boards for no purpose. I cannot see what they do. There is a flaw in the system which is so extraordinary, it is impossible to believe it continues. These people do not even have to stand for re-election. They are there at the whim of the Minister, to whom they are not accountable. The last time I asked a parliamentary question about this - I must ask another one - the Minister, as far as I could discern, almost never met them. They were accountable to the board itself, which could not remove them. They were not accountable to the shareholders, who cannot remove them either because they never come up for re-election. Without naming them, many of these people wear their political colours on their chests. At least three, of whom I can think, are former Ministers. I do not know what they know about banking or what qualifications they have to be on the boards of banks but they certainly have political loyalties which cannot be said to be in any way useful, because they do not report to anybody, and these obviously overshadow any expertise they have.

When the Minister of State replies to this debate, will he respond by saying the Central Bank can be improved? The Central Bank of Ireland is full of people who should not be in it. Look at what happened to the last deputy governor. We had this sheriff riding in from overseas to clean up the Central Bank of Ireland, and people welcomed him with open arms. We thought there was great hope coming through, and this is no disrespect to the Governor, Professor Patrick Honohan, who has wonderful intentions for the Central Bank. However, the last deputy governor was brought in from overseas with, as far as we know, this truly independent outlook, which is a rare thing in Ireland, specifically because of the problems I mentioned and because he was different. However, he left long before his contract was due to end. The reason for that was that he shared the disillusionment I am expressing here.

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