THE INTERNATIONAL financial services sector can offer opportunities to staff who lose their jobs in the domestic banks, according to the president of the IFSC Ireland, John Bruton.

As the domestic banks were downsized, international banks in Ireland, which already employed almost 30,000, could offer redeployment opportunities, he added.

Ireland had much to offer international financial services and remains an attractive location for outside companies.

At the inaugural conference of the Federation of International Banks in Ireland, Mr Bruton expressed confidence Ireland would retain its low corporate tax rate, despite pressure from some EU countries to increase it.

A low corporate tax policy was “the basis on which we’ve structured our economy and it’s the economy that will repay the loans that people have extended to us.”

He dismissed talk of burning senior bondholders.

“It is important to any country, both for its own self-respect and for the international respect, to have credibility in international finance, that it keeps its word. I think Irish people have it in them to do this. It’s not going to be easy.”

The banking crisis was not deterring international firms from setting up a base in Ireland, he said.

Mr Bruton referred to an expansion by financial services firm Asset Control of its Dublin operations that should lead to 50 new jobs as evidence of this opportunity.