Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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64. To ask the Minister for Finance the number of active investigations the Central Bank is running into matters related to insider information; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18473/18]

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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65. To ask the Minister for Finance the number of persons or companies that have been reprimanded by the Central Bank as a result of investigations into insider information by year and nature in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18474/18]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 64 and 65 together.

"Insider information" as referenced by the Deputy is a form of market abuse. The Central Bank of Ireland has been designated as the single administrative competent authority for the purpose of Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014 on market abuse.

Securities markets activity encompasses a high number of participants engaged in significant levels of trading activity in a range of securities across global markets. I am informed by the Central Bank that it collects significant volumes of data on market activity including transaction reports from Irish authorised firms and other EU competent authorities; there were 270 million such reports in 2016.  The Central Bank adopts a systematic approach to identifying from this data any suspicious transaction reports obtained from Irish authorised firms and other EU competent authorities of potential breaches of market abuse legislation (55 suspicious transaction reports received in 2016).  All of this information may trigger an investigation by the Central Bank and further action, adopting a risk-based approach.  Such action may include referrals to other competent authorities, risk mitigation actions for regulated firms and instigation of enforcement action. 

The Central Bank does not comment on any ongoing investigation(s), nor would it be appropriate for me to do so.

The Central Bank have provided the following table on Monitoring Compliance of Market Participants against Market Abuse Directive; this data is published in the Central Bank’s Annual Performance Statement 2016-2017.

The Central Bank provided the following table, which details sanctions imposed by the Central Bank for matters under the Market Abuse Regulations 2005 and/or the Market Abuse Rules 2006. Public statements in respect of each of the actions taken are available on the Central Bank’s website.