The chair of the Public Accounts Committee has expressed concern over a series of leaks of sensitive financial information.
Sinn Féin's Brian Stanley noted that, each time, the leaks came a day before publication of the information was due.
The first leak, relating to the release of €750m in unauthorised funds by the Central Bank to the Department of Finance, took place in December.
Today, the Comptroller and Auditor General Seamus McCarthy said that the release of those funds was "a matter of serious concern".
Deputy Stanley noted that only the Central Bank, along with the Comptroller and the Department of Finance, had access to the information.
Then, two months ago, officials from the Central Bank told PAC that they were unable to provide details of a financial settlement made by financial services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in a dispute with Quinn Insurance, which has been run by administrators since its collapse over a decade ago.
The officials claimed that the information "was confidential", Deputy Stanley said.
But yesterday, "again, one day before the event", those details were published by "the same journalist and the same paper" as had published the earlier leak.
Brian Stanley noted that the journalist was only doing his job, but asked the Governor of the Central Bank, "Would you find it a strange coincidence?"
"Absolutely it is a strange coincidence - and it looks deliberate", Gabriel Makhlouf responded.
But he insisted, "Nobody in my office spoke to any journalist about both the items".
"The Central Bank is not in the business of leaking," he stated.
He said that it is "incredibly regrettable that leaks happen".
But Mr Makhlouf acknowledged that "not many" people in the Central Bank had access to the information which was published in the latest leak.
The Governor also said that he is confident that the release of unauthorised funds which occurred last year could not happen again, as controls had been improved.
