Evidently, the full picture requires that dimension also: after all, it is to the directors of banks that we look in the first instance for safe and sound operation of their firms; official prudential regulation can best be seen as a backstop designed to restrain the behaviour of imprudence or recklessness. Clearly in this case neither the first line defence nor the backstop worked.
The issues that I have been asked to examine include the performance of the respective functions of the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator over the period from the establishment of the Financial Regulator to the end of September 2008.