Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am satisfied with the Central Bank's approach. The bank is an observer on the IFS 2020 joint committee, which I chair and to which I referred earlier. The Central Bank has a responsibility, independent of Government, to make sure that we can manage the changes that are coming as a result of Brexit.

I have raised concerns about the capacity for other jurisdictions to compete on level regulatory playing field and statements have been made on this issue recently by the European Central Bank, ECB, the Single Supervisory Mechanism, SSM, the European Securities and Markets Authority, ESMA and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, EIOPA. Recent statements by Governor Lane of the Central Bank were very instructive in this regard. He pointed out that when it comes to regulation of entities in the Single Market, we are moving towards convergence. Proposals are on the table at the moment that will help that supervisory standard across the Single Market.

I wish to pick up on two important points made by the Deputy in his contribution. The Deputy referred to education and the tie in with UCC, which is very important. We also have a great apprenticeship programme that was launched under IFS 2020 last year. The Deputy also made reference to the tie-ins with China and we are positioning ourselves as a gateway for international financial services into the Single Market. Asia has been a very strong part of that play and we are seeing significant interest from companies currently based in China and Japan which either have no entity here at the moment or only have a small entity in a particular sub-sector - for example, aviation and aircraft finance and leasing - which are now looking very seriously at Ireland. We expect some very positive announcements in that context in the near future.

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