*  *  *  Good afternoon Chairman and members of the Joint Committee and thank you for the invitation to speak with you today on the current state of the economy and the banking/financial services sectors. I am accompanied by Tony Grimes, the Director General of the Central Bank and Tom O’Connell, Assistant Director General, Economics.
Earlier this year, I outlined to the Committee our unitary organisational structure and I emphasised, in particular, how the Central Bank and Financial Regulator work closely together in response to the market turbulence. I don’t intend today to describe those arrangements again except to say that the structure continues to work very well and there continues to be the closest cooperation.