interest rates ease repayment burdens, this may not last. the resilience from having sufficient buffers in place proved vital in responding to the pandemic and will be 2 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches paramount in dealing with future downturns. 1 i would like to thank daragh clancy and caroline mehigan for their contribution to my remarks. 2 see broner, f., d. clancy, a. erce & a. martin, “ fiscal multipliers and foreign holdings of public debt ”, review of economic studies, forthcoming. 3 indeed, irish income tax returns and earnings data point to an increase in aggregate employee earnings, driven by workers in the many sectors relatively unaffected by the restrictions. see also cahill, b. & r. lydon ( 2021 ), “ the impact of covid - 19 on the incomes and debt sustainability of irish households ”, economic letter, vol. 2021, no. 2, central bank of ireland. 4 for a detailed discussion, including references to some of the substantial amount of research produced by the central bank of ireland on this issue, see my speech at the national university of ireland, galway on 30 march 2021. 5 see conefrey, t., r. hickey & n. mcinerney ( 2021 ) “ covid - 19 and the public finances in ireland ”, economic letter, vol. 2021, no. 3, central bank of ireland. 6 see clancy, d., p. jacquinot & m. lozej ( 2016 ) “ government expenditure composition and fiscal policy spillovers in small open economies within a monetary union ”, journal of macroeconomics 48 : 305 – 326 and hickey, r., m. lozej & d. smyth ( 2020 ) “ financing government investment and its implications for public capital : a small open economy perspective ”, economic modelling 93 : 620 – 641. 7 see lydon, r. & t. mcindoe - calder ( 2021 ) “ saving during the pandemic : waiting out the storm? ”, economic letter, vol. 2021, no. 4, central bank of ireland. 8 see wosser, m., m. o ’ brien & c. mehigan ( 2019 ) “ financial stability considerations of being a small, highly globalised economy ” box 2, financial stability review 2019 : 1, central bank of ireland. 9 see o ’ grady, m., j

risk, strategy and governance rests with the board, including the adequacy of digital and it strategies to deliver and support business strategies and plans. boards must rstly ensure they themselves have the skills and knowledge to meaningfully understand the risks their organisation faces and the responsibilities they bear. in order for the it function to be able to operate within set risk tolerances, boards are expected to allocate and periodically review appropriate it budgets to safeguard the operational resilience of the it framework. in this regard, the central bank expects boards to approve, oversee and review the implementation of business continuity policies and disaster recovery plans. furthermore, boards are expected to obtain independent assurance on it governance by approving and periodically reviewing the it audit plans and by being informed in a timely manner of it related incidents and their impact on their rm ’ s operations17. proposed upstream legislation, such as the eu digital operational resilience act ( in short dora ) 18 or the revised eu directive on security of network and information systems ( nis2 ) 19, will also seek to further strengthen the governance and oversight frameworks of it risk. climate change finally, i want to turn to climate change and sustainability. until recently, these would not necessarily have been seen as areas of legitimate interest of central banks and regulators. it is now clear that the macro - prudential policy, economic advice, nancial stability, and consumer and investor protection implications of climate change put it rmly in the bailiwick of central banks and regulators. as the president of the ecb, christine lagarde, has recently said20, “ inaction has negative consequences, and the implications of not tackling climate change are already visible. globally, the past six years are the warmest six on record, and 2020 was the warmest in europe. the number of disasters caused by natural hazards is also rising, resulting in $ 210 billion of damages in 2020. an analysis of over 300 peer - reviewed studies of disasters found that almost 70 % of the events analysed were made more likely, or more severe, by human - caused climate change. ” in this context, the ecb is assessing how climate risks and environmental sustainability considerations are relevant in the pursuit of its mandate as part of its ongoing strategy review, to which the central bank is an active participant. so, the question becomes not whether we should focus efforts on climate change, but how and what should we focus on. i believe we have a role in both