Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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Question 150: To ask the Minister for Finance if he will support the proposal by the new head of the IMF, Ms Christine Lagarde, that the four main ratings agencies be precluded from commenting on the credit rating of states that are part of IMF-EU bailout programmes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21346/11]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy may be aware, the EU Commission is working on proposals in relation to credit rating agencies. In this context, the Commission initiated a public consultation to elicit the views of the public and market participants at the end of 2010. The purpose of the public consultation was to open a wider debate and get input from investors, market participants, governments, regulators and other stakeholders in order to calibrate the scope and ambition on possible provisions to be considered in a forthcoming Commission proposal. Such a proposal would deal with potential risks arising from over-reliance on credit rating by financial markets participants, the high degree of concentration in the rating market, absence of civil liability of credit rating agencies in the Credit Rating Agencies Regulation and conflicts of interest due to the remuneration models used by the credit rating agencies.

Following this consultation, the Commission is to present concrete policy initiatives in this area, with the goal of having these adopted over the period 2011-2012. I expect that all appropriate options will be examined in that context. I look forward with interest to the work in this area and can assure the Deputy that the Government will participate fully in the process of bringing these initiatives to finality.

Finally, in this context, I note that widespread concern has been expressed about recent unilateral decisions made by credit-rating agencies, including the downgrading of Ireland's credit rating last week by Moody's. This was a disappointing development and completely at odds with the recent views of other rating agencies.