The Central Bank's head of financial regulation says the bank still needs to change its culture to encourage more open debate within the institution.
Speaking in Galway yesterday, Matthew Elderfield referred to the recent Nyberg report on the banking crisis, which said that the regulatory authorities were reluctant to challenge bank boards.
'We are still very hierarchical and need to work in a joined up way, encouraging debate and challenge between areas,' he said.
Mr Elderfield said that if people within the Central Bank were not better at challenging each other's views, they would not be able to 'raise their game' to challenge chief executives of the banks they were supervising.
Referring to Nyberg's findings about the consensus and lack of debate in bank boardrooms before the financial crisis, Mr Elderfield said the Central Bank was addressing this by reviewing current bank boards and introducing tough new standards for directors.
He also said the Central Bank was now ranking all financial firms in order of their importance to the wider Irish economy, and would take a more 'intrusive' and 'assertive' approach with those institutions it classified as 'high impact'.
Mr Elderfield also said the sale of Quinn Insurance to Liberty Mutual and Anglo Irish Bank last month was a positive step, which provided a path for the business to move forward on.
