Sir, – In his column (“Public anger over Anglo tapes can not be ignored”, Business, July 3rd), Ciarán Hancock asks what is to stop the Central Bank from providing a step-by-step account of its various actions in relation to the banks and what is to prevent the Central Bank from publishing correspondence from the banks, in addition to other materials?
There is no unwillingness on the Central Bank to provide as much transparency as possible on these matters; however there are a number of legal restrictions – both domestic and European – placed on the Central Bank which requires it to maintain confidentiality on certain matters and in particular in regards to its dealings with individual banks. These confidentiality requirements are not specific to the Central Bank and indeed apply to financial regulatory authorities throughout Europe, stemming as they do from European law, including various supervisory directives in addition to the Rome Treaty and the European System of Central Banks Statute.
It is worth noting that, despite these constraints and within the legal requirements, an in depth analysis of the relationship between the Central Bank and the banks, including analysis of the banking guarantee, was presented in the report, The Irish Banking Crisis, Regulatory and Financial Stability Policy 2003 -2008 of Central Bank Governor, Patrick Honohan, published in May 2010. – Yours, etc,
NEIL WHORISKEY,
Secretary,
Central Bank of Ireland,
Dame Street, Dublin 2.
Sir, – Let’s keep our eye on the ball here. It is not the German people who are bailing out the Irish people, but the Irish people who are bailing out the German, and other, banks that invested in Anglo Irish Bank. – Yours, etc,
JOHN MURRAY,
St Alban’s Road,
Dublin 8.