understanding of climate risk, seeking to address those risks through upskilling, identifying useable tools and frameworks, raising awareness, and taking leadership applies to all participants in the financial system – including regulators – and we are supportive of many of the recommendations. i am particularly drawn to the new industry narrative recommendation, which proposes to articulate a coherent story on what role the industry is playing in support of wider climate goals. in my view, the establishment of the climate forum and the publication of this report is a substantial first step in building that narrative. but there is no doubt that we are very much in the early days of this journey. and while we can expect the regulations and industry best practices for meeting those regulations to evolve – there is a need to further embed climate risk and sustainable finance within our organisations and that can only happen through building capacity. as i have said before while the path toward a net - zero economy is a difficult one, it is nevertheless one that we must all walk together. my thanks again to the working group for making a substantive contribution in that journey with this report and i look forward to the rest of the event this morning. 2 / 2 bis - central bankers'speeches

not been profitable. still, it is reasonable to ask whether, having under - priced lending so badly in the early years of the millennium, they could end up over - pricing it now. ireland is not the only country to have been experiencing widening spreads. in the uk too they have moved up since the crisis and, for mortgages, are about as high as here. spain and italy are other large countries where spreads on small loans, including business loans widened appreciably following the crisis, though with some reversal more recently ( figure 3 ). bis central bankers ’ speeches so, should there be a ceiling on interest spreads? control of retail interest rates by the central bank is not provided for in legislation, and i believe it should remain so. this will not come as a surprise to students of economics, accustomed to understanding the problems that can be caused by preventing the emergence of a market - clearing price. but i think that there is an important political economy dimension here. if the local banks are charging unnecessarily high interest rates, that will be an inducement for new entry into lending here, and that ( reversing the trend of the past few years ) would be very welcome and would have the effect of bringing both pricing and the quality of banking services to a much better place. in contrast, aggressive official interest rate spread control would be the clearest warning signal to would - be entrants that they might not be permitted to earn sufficient profits to justify the costs of entering. enforcement given that the ssm is overlaid on a tapestry of detailed national legislation, it follows that, when it comes to enforcing the banking regulations through ex post administrative actions such as fines – whether on banks ( or other financial firms ) as institutions, or on individuals responsible – this remains a national responsibility, and one which we approach with vigour. our enforcement effort not only focuses on banking, but also on insurance, markets and of course, the key area of consumer regulation. for the past four years we have operated a separate enforcement directorate at the central bank in order to ensure both that such work is given sufficient priority and that it is separate from ongoing supervision. this is an area that calls for painstaking and meticulous work to build cases that stand up to challenge. some administrative cases have been in preparation for years. the legal environment is such that the burden of proof is very much on us and it is incumbent on us to bring enforcement cases forward so that the credibility