The Government has published the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland Bill 2002.
The bill allows for the restructuring of the Central Bank and the creation of a new financial services regulator.
The Government has also named a new interim board to oversee the transition to the new regulatory arrangements.
The chairman of the interim board will be Mr Brian Patterson, former chief executive of Wedgwood, a division of Waterford Wedgwood. Other members of the board include author and journalist Ms Deirdre Purcell and Mr Dermot Quigley, former chairman of the revenue commissioners.
The new regulatory authority will manage the supervision of financial institutions in the Republic and will operate within the Central Bank’s legal structure but will have its own chief executive and board with independent functions.
The authority will bring together the supervision of the financial services industry. For the first time in the Republic, the two functions of industry regulation and consumer protection will combine in one body.
The structure provided for in this Bill differs slightly from the structure originally envisaged by the Government. In particular, the Bill now provides for a monetary committee, rather than a separate monetary authority within the board of the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland.
The full text of the Bill is available at www.gov.ie/finance/news/main2.htm