The Central Bank works in many different ways to protect the resilience of the system, individual firms and consumers, including through: price stability and economic analysis; macro prudential rules; supervision and enforcement. An effective functioning financial system requires financial services firms to be well-regulated and supervised.
While the timing and nature of the current economic shock were largely unforeseen, the Central Bank’s work has long recognised the inevitably of economic shocks and downturns. We have focused over the last decade on rebuilding and increasing the financial and operational resilience of the Irish financial system, together with significantly strengthening consumer and investor protection frameworks has been undertaken with this in mind.