, it is the force of an argument, rather than who makes it, that commands respect. i can assure you that we have a very comprehensive monetary policy preparation process in place in the central bank, which ensures that we play a full part in the formulation of euro area monetary policy. we also play a full part in the monetary policy implementation process. at the operational level, central bank staff carry out the eurosystem's money market management operations with dublin based banks. the banking system in ireland actually takes a disproportionately high share of funding in ecb operations. this reflects the importance of dublin as a financial centre, as testified by the still growing number of financial institutions choosing ireland as a location for their operations. thus, in terms of our interaction with the market, it may be surprising but it is nonetheless true that membership of monetary union has actually brought the central bank in contact with a wider range of domestic counterparties than was the case before 1999. the eurosystem is also responsible for the smooth operation of payment systems. the main instrument for carrying out this task is the provision of payment and securities settlement facilities. to this end, the eurosystem has created target for large - value payments in euro. at present, target is a'system of systems'made up of interlinked national payment systems, and again here the central bank plays a full part. in excess of one million transactions, amounting to almost eur5 trillion, were processed through the irish system in 2004. this represented 1. 5 per cent by volume of the total transactions processed by the target system last year. while i have focussed on the central bank's responsibilities in relation to eurosystem monetary policy, i would like to emphasise that this is only one part of what we do. additional responsibilities, among other things, include contributing to the maintenance of financial stability and providing banknotes and coin ; our full set of responsibilities are set out in the three year strategic plan which we published in 2004. this gives you a flavour of some of our activities and i feel i should now stop and hand over to tom o'connell and his team who will tell you a lot more about the role of the central bank as a member of the eurosystem, with a particular focus on monetary policy. once again i would like to thank you for taking the time to come here this morning.

another. in 1913, the us congress established the federal reserve system, not only to provide greater financial stability and to improve banking supervision, but also to provide an elastic currency and a national check - clearing system. the federal reserve began issuing currency in 1914. moreover, checks that were cleared through the federal reserve and that were drawn on federal reserve member banks were exchanged at par value. in the early days, the federal reserve's national check - clearing service was provided free of charge to nationally chartered banks that were required to join the system and state - chartered banks that joined voluntarily. despite some early difficulties with achieving widespread par clearing, the federal reserve's check collection services ultimately provided the nation with a much more unified payments system. during this period, checks or drafts were also used as a means of settling interbank payment obligations. to improve the safety and efficiency of the interbank settlement process, in 1918 the federal reserve developed and implemented fedwire, the first real - time gross settlement system. the key feature of the fedwire system was the ability to transfer account balances held at the central bank through telegraphic messages using a secure communications network. although fedwire was intended to improve the large - value payment system, and quickly accomplished that goal, it was also used for some urgent large - value commercial and retail payments, and continues to be used that way today. the payments operations of state and federally chartered private banks, private clearing houses, and the operations of the new central bank, provided the foundation for the private - and public - sector payments infrastructure that exists in the united states today. yet for many years, policies that deterred interstate banking shaped the design and operation of the retail payments system. the us banking and payments system has also been shaped by other important state and federal laws. starting in the late 1800s, states attempted to develop a more - uniform set of commercial laws codifying existing laws and common business practices. they eventually adopted the uniform commercial code, or ucc, which states generally enacted. at the federal level, a number of laws influenced the development of the banking system. laws such as the mcfadden act and the douglas amendment to the bank holding company act were passed to restrict either bank ownership or bank branching across state lines. over the years, legislation enacted by the various states, and ultimately at the federal level, eliminated the barriers to banks operating across state lines, at least with respect to interstate bank acquisitions. in 1994, the riegle - neal act,