To illustrate the scale of the international financial sector in Ireland, the balance sheets of the internationally-orientated banks and insurance companies that we regulate aggregate to € billion. In addition, the assets of the investment funds that we authorise amount to € trillion euro, while we also gather information on other entities such as special purpose vehicles.
While in principle the ECB can, and has been in  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  effect playing this role and taking a large amount of risky assets onto its balance sheet, it is questionable whether it can continue to do so without intense political pressure from some of the member states who feel that the ECB is operating outside of its mandate.