john hurley : the €15 silver mestrovic coin speech by mr john hurley, governor of the central bank and financial services authority of ireland, at the launch of the €15 silver mestrovic coin, dublin, 12 february 2007. * * * your excellency, ladies and gentlemen, i would like to welcome you here today to the launch of this coin bearing the design prepared so long ago by ivan mestrovic. it is hard to believe that it was eighty years ago. ivan mestroviæ was a sculptor, an architect, a writer and a participant in important political events of his day. he studied at the vienna academy of art in the early nineteen hundreds at the height of the vienna secession movement. he was awarded the grand prix for sculpture at the 1911 world exhibition in rome. and from 1923 to 1942, mestroviæ was dean of the zagreb academy of arts. a committee was set up in 1926, chaired by the irish poet and nobel prize winner, william butler yeats, to recommend designs for the coinage of the new irish state. ivan mestroviæ was one of the internationally renowned artists approached to put forward designs. as a result of communication problems, however, it was ultimately not possible to include his work in the process. nonetheless, it is very interesting to see what was thought about his design at that time. w. b. yeats himself called it ‘ one magnificent design ’. thomas bodkin, at that time a governor of the irish national gallery, described it as ‘ a superb design ’. the official report of the committee referred to it as ‘ a magnificent piece of work ’ and recommended to the government that an alternative use for it be found. over the years, many possibilities were examined. and for more than forty years, it has been the design on the seal of the central bank of ireland, which you can see displayed here. for my years here as the governor of the central bank and financial services authority of ireland i have been familiar with this excellent work. it is now a particular pleasure for me to see the design, which was intended for use on a coin, at last finding its true home. and what a beautiful coin it makes. i think that great credit is due to the croatian monetary institute on the excellence of their work. the end result they have achieved fully validates the comments made originally in 1927 and, in my view, does full justice to the excellence of ivan

sharon donnery : central bank risk management in a changing institutional and regulatory environment speech by ms sharon donnery, deputy governor ( central banking ) of the central bank of ireland, at the joint bank of portugal and european central bank conference on " risk management for central banks ", lisbon, 26 september 2017. * * * introduction robert f. kennedy once said “ like it or not we live in interesting times ”. 1 as central bankers, supervisors, or market participants alike, those working in financial markets have certainly come through some extraordinarily interesting times in recent years. for central banks, risk management is at the intersection of both central banking and supervisory structures, and the financial market. it is, therefore, a pleasure to speak to some of the issues which are emerging in this space, particularly in the context of the changing european institutional architecture and regulatory environment. during recent years, fragile, and indeed unstable, economic and market conditions have required central banks to assume potentially substantial financial risks. these were taken with the objective of maintaining the appropriate functioning of the monetary policy transmission mechanism and restoring price stability. this fundamental shift in the risk profile of central banks ’ response is an integral part to performing our role and to fulfilling our mandate of bringing inflation below but close to 2 per cent over the medium term. in parallel, following the financial crisis, regulatory reform has focussed on better safeguarding the stability and efficiency of an increasingly globalised financial system and, importantly, mitigating the impact of future market failures. these changes have brought a whole array of new regulatory policies. while most of the policy reforms are directed at commercial financial institutions, all financial market participants, including central banks are affected – not least by the important structural changes with the advent of banking union. for the purposes of today ’ s discussion, the focus of my remarks is on the implications for central bank risk management. the implications, however, differ, depending on which part of a central bank ’ s mandate one focusses. it is possible to discern different implications of the recent developments in regulatory frameworks for risk management policies and practices, depending on whether we focus on monetary policy, financial stability, supervision, reserves management, or payments and settlements. moreover, some of the implications of regulatory developments are not yet fully understood given many are still at an early stage of implementation. today, i would like to briefly discuss three aspects of recent developments in regulatory frameworks for risk management in central banks : 1. the impact of regulation on central