Business And Leadership: Financial Regulators to appear before Oireachtas today

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Financial Regulators to appear before Oireachtas today

08.12.2009
All the players in Ireland’s financial regulatory system are set to attend a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on European Scrutiny at 12 noon today.

The meeting will consider EU plans to overhaul the current financial regulation system and impose a new EU wide robust supervisory structure.

Those in attendance will be Pat Farrell, the CEO, Irish Banking Federation; Breda Cassidy, EU and International Coordinator at the Financial Regulator; Deirdre Somers, Chief Executive of the Irish Stock Exchange; Mark Cassidy of the Central Bank; Brendan Kelly, Director of the Financial Services Ireland; along with officials from the Department of Finance.

The EU proposals aim to establish a strong and robust EU supervisory structure for financial services by developing a single rule book for financial regulation. The plans were formulated following the global financial crisis and the recognition that national regulation had failed across many EU states.

The EU plans to implement recommendations of the De Larosiere Report. Some of the measures outlined in the report include the establishment of a European Systematic Risk Board (ESRB) to monitor the stability of the financial system. This body will also have the power to issue warnings to member states.

The report also proposed the creation of European Supervisory Authorities which will have the authority to impose legal binding regulations on national regulators or individual financial institutions.

““There is a consensus that the manifest failure of financial regulation has been a significant contributory to the fiscal global crisis and that there needs to be wholesale change to the way in which our financial institutions are controlled,” said Committee Chairman, John Perry TD.

“The EU has put forward some extensive plans to change the way the industry is regulated and to create uniformity across all EU states to meet the challenges of effectively maintaining stability in financial services in the EU.”