I am delighted to be here today at the Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) Annual Retail Banking Conference. The theme of the conference “Delivering for the Customer” is clearly important – arguably never more important, given the low levels of trust that customers have in the retail banks operating in Ireland.
But there is also a political argument – political influence does not necessarily mean stronger legitimacy, precisely because it is likely to arouse the suspicion that the central bank is politically motivated and may therefore deviate from its mandate for political reasons. So I would argue that independence does not weaken accountability, it strengthens it.