Cantillon: Time to regulate talk of over-regulation

There can be little surprise at the stand taken yesterday by the IFSC's President, John Bruton, on the issue of bank regulation.

His comments that that we need to "put a rein on regulation" and that he knows of banks handing back their licences because of too much regulation echo those last week by the deputy Governor of AIB, Michael Somers, and obviously gives expression to the view that holds down in the Dublin Docks and, no doubt, elsewhere in the world of global finance.

His comments about banking needing more ethics rather than more regulation sound worryingly like someone who believes that the banks can be trusted to run their affairs properly once they get their systems of corporate governance right. That may be unfair but an easy reading of his words could certainly form that impression.

The outgoing Matthew Elderfield, (pictured) in his comments to the same European Insurance Forum gathering in Dublin on Thursday, put the emphasis on the other side of the debate. As he said to reporters afterwards, he wanted to make the point in his valedictory address that the pendulum can swing back and forth in terms of new rules and new laws "but strong supervision needs to be a constant".

He is not alone. At a credit union conference in Dublin on Tuesday, the economist and former adviser to the late Brian Lenihan, Alan Ahearne, said that the light touch regulation which obtained before the crisis had "disastrous consequences" and that while the pendulum may swing a bit far this way or that, it was "clear we cannot have a financial system that regulates itself".

But, as said at the outset, there is no surprise really that an ambassador for the IFSC should emphasise the commercial concerns of the financial sector in respect of the regulation debate.

Perhaps more surprising is the line about austerity and the morality or otherwise of borrowing money that our children, or grandchildren, will have to repay.

Given the long maturities of government debt it could well be the case that some of the money that is now being paid back was taken out when Bruton was leader of the Rainbow Coalition during the 1990s, or even when he was Minister for Finance during the 1980s.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying the most moral thing to do when in a situation such as Ireland finds itself, is to do what is best for present generations and the country’s near-term prospects. And presumably both sides of the austerity debate have that objective in mind.