Cantillon: Fourth Central Bank executive jumps ship

To lose one senior executive might be considered unfortunate but to have four depart in short order is bordering on careless by the Central Bank of Ireland.

Yesterday Fiona Muldoon, the director of credit institutions and insurance supervision, became the fourth member of the Central Bank's senior team to announce their departure this year.

Muldoon is just under halfway through a five-year contract and will work out a notice period until May next. She told this newspaper she had no job lined up but felt it was a "good inflection point" to announce her departure with Cyril Roux having recently taken up his post as deputy governor and head of financial regulation. Muldoon had applied for this role.

Her exit is just the latest in a string of high-profile departures from Dame Street.

In January, director of enforcement Peter Oaks announced he was stepping down to pursue other interests after just two years in the job.

Deputy governor and head of financial regulation Matthew Elderfield took his leave in September for a senior role with Lloyds Banking Group in his native UK after 3½ years in Ireland.

Finn Lars Frissel, director of economics and chief economist, was only here a wet week (June 2012) before agreeing to take a job with the IMF.
It was an opportunity too good to turn down it seems, and he's off in February or March.

These departures might all just be an unfortunate
coincidence for governor Patrick Honohan or there might be common threads. The obvious one is remuneration.

The Haddington Road agreement imposed pay cuts of up to 10 per cent on civil and public servants and was just the latest attack on remuneration by the State on this group of workers since the economy collapsed in 2008.

Bonuses are also out of the question.

All this upheaval in the senior ranks can hardly be conducive to the smooth and effective running of our financial regulator, which is a concern given the difficult work that still lies ahead.