customer centric, is meaningless if they are not supported by the underlying culture. in other words, the questions that should be most prominent in banks are not ones relating to compliance with regulatory requirements ( important as they are ), but rather : is this sustainable? is it in the long - term interests of our customers? does this fit with our espoused values? is this right? how are my staff incentivised to act? 5 / 7 bis central bankers'speeches conclusion i will conclude here. we live in complex and undoubtedly interesting times. as none of us can predict the future with any degree of certainty, we all need to embrace this complexity, and be as adaptive as the financial services system that we work in is. environmental, cyclical, structural, technological, and regulatory change pressures will continue to drive the transformation of the banking sector. the pressure for cultural change is also sizeable. it is arguably the most important. it is definitively the one that is most in your control. i urge you to act. thank you for your attention. i look forward to the discussion. 1 see esrb, 2016, ‘ macroprudential policy issues arising from low interest rates and structural changes in the eu financial system ’ november 2016. joint task force of esrb advisory technical committee ( atc ), esrb advisory scientific committee ( asc ), and ecb financial stability committee ( fsc ). available here. 2 see, for example, the imf gfsr : imf global financial stability report, ( 2014 ), “ moving from liquidity - to growth - driven markets ”, april 2014 international monetary fund. available here. also, ecb, ( 2014 ) financial stability review, november 2014, european central bank. available here. also, central bank of ireland, ( 2014 ), macro financial review 2014 : ii, november 2014. available here. 3 see imf, 2017, global financial stability report : is growth a risk? april 2017, international monetary fund available here. looking at roe ( 2016 underlying, 2019 consensus forecasts, and management medium - term target ) of us versus eu g - sib, figure 1. 8 shows most us g - sibs should reach profitability targets, but european and g - sibs face significant gaps. 4 see imf, 2017, ‘ european banking systems : addressing structural challenges ’, global financial stability report : getting the policy mix right, october 2017, international monetary fund.

john hurley : current state of the irish economy opening statement by mr john hurley, governor of the central bank and financial services authority of ireland, to the joint committee on finance and the public service, dublin, 15 july 2008. * * * good afternoon chairman and members of the joint committee and thank you for the invitation to speak with you today on the current state of the economy and the banking / financial services sectors. i am accompanied by tony grimes, the director general of the central bank and tom o ’ connell, assistant director general, economics. earlier this year, i outlined to the committee our unitary organisational structure and i emphasised, in particular, how the central bank and financial regulator work closely together in response to the market turbulence. i don ’ t intend today to describe those arrangements again except to say that the structure continues to work very well and there continues to be the closest cooperation. it is worth reminding ourselves that we have a very different economy now as compared to 20 to 25 years ago. since then, ireland has transformed itself from being a country with a relatively low standard of living to one where average income per head is now well above the eu average. not only are living standards much higher, employment has grown rapidly and we have seen strong development in manufacturing, business and financial services sectors, helped by the fact that we have been hugely successful in attracting foreign investment. clearly, the economic situation has changed significantly, but in terms of where we are starting from, the position is very different from the 1980s. as you know, we published our annual report last week and, in my statement today, i will outline the rationale behind our latest forecasts for economic growth. in our earlier forecasts, it was always emphasised that there were many downside risks and vulnerabilities that could push growth lower. these risks related to the potential for interaction between global financial market turbulence, rising global energy and food prices and the slowing of activity within the economy, which was already underway. in recent months, almost all of these downside risks have materialised and this has led to a greater - than - expected slowdown in growth and higher - than - anticipated inflation. notwithstanding the more challenging short - term outlook, we continue to believe that growth in the economy should gradually recover and inflation moderate. however, this recovery is not guaranteed and the evolution of the economy will be very much influenced by how we respond to the current challenges we face. as a country we have benefited considerably from the