Q. We have recently seen the insights of the last minister of State at the Department of Finance, Eithne Fitzgerald, published in an article in Finance Dublin in October 2022. As (only) the third woman Minister of State at the Irish Department of Finance in the last 100 years, how have times changed for the better since she was a Minister? And, what remains to be done? for example with regard to empowering young people, and young women, in finance as a career.

It was a great personal honour for to be appointed as Minister of State here at the Department of Finance before Christmas. As a public representative I understand the importance of the policy work that the Department of Finance does and the impact that has. The reach of the Department goes beyond the State, and through collaboration with colleagues in Europe and through our active participation in important international institutions such as the OECD, the IMF/World Bank and range of multilateral development banks across Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.

Since my appointment, I have been concentrating on reading the briefs and introducing myself to the teams working on the broad range of responsibilities and areas that I will be working on in the Department.
Among these, the responsibility for the development of the International Financial Services (IFS) sector is a particularly exciting opportunity. I have started engaging with the people that make up this dynamic and growing industry in recent weeks and over the coming months I look forward to learning more about the sector and how I can work to support its continued growth and development.

The IFS sector is one that I am personally very familiar with having seen the impact that the opportunities that the sector creates in my own family, among my friends and the people I went to school and college with, as well as for the people I represent in my constituency.

IFS is a dynamic nature sector and one that is of growing importance to the Irish economy. Not just in the number of people it employs across the country, with over fifty six thousand directly employed and thirty percent of these outside Dublin. The IFS industry supports a thriving community of professional services providers across the legal and accounting firms and the salaries in the sector in general tend to be above average.
A major policy focus since taking up my new role has been finalising the first Action Plan under the Update to Ireland for Finance. This whole-of-government strategy, is an important demonstration of the Government commitment to growing the sector and expanding the number of people who get to benefit from the opportunities that it is creating across the country.

I want to thank my predecessor for carrying out the update out last year, and those in the industry that contributed to it. The enhanced and extended strategy provides me with a strong platform to engage with the stakeholders in the public and the private sector in the coming weeks and months ahead.

The strategy has all the elements we need for further success and from both my initial reading and my early engagement with investors, seems to have identified the right priorities in fintech and sustainable finance as we shift to a lower carbon higher digital world.

The hard work is to implement the strategy and couple these macro trends with a focus on transforming them into opportunities for people, those currently working in the sector, those thinking about it and also putting IFS on the radar of those who have yet to consider it and may not be fully aware of the promise the sector holds.

IFS is a really unique sector of the Irish economy, it covers a very broad range of activities from investment banking, the administration of investment funds, international insurance operations, pioneering payments firms and the world leading aircraft leasing sector. I find it encouraging that the employment is not concentrated in a small number of companies but rather it is spread out among a diverse group of firms supported by IDA and Enterprise Ireland.

I am looking forward to meeting with these firms to hear directly how Ireland as a financial centre creates value for them and their customers and what we can do to expand the set of opportunities into the future.

As well as meeting with the firms here at home, I will also be engaging directly in key overseas markets both with the leadership teams in the firms responsible for investing in IFS in Ireland. I also plan on meeting with decision makers from the public sector in the financial centres where the policies that determine the future of the sector here in Ireland are shaped and developed.

To that end I have travelled to London and Madrid and planned official visits to Paris and Brussels in the coming months. I believe that the Irish diaspora can play an important role in delivering on our ambitions in IFS and I look forward to engaging with them in the coming years as part of my engagement program.

On being the third woman appointed to this position.
If you step back for a moment and consider the fact that in the last 100 years only three women have served in this role, you see how glaring an example of how poor the gender balance has been. While we have seen significant changes for the better since Avril Doyle was first a Minister of State in the 1980s, and Eithne Fitzgerald’s time here in the 1990s, clearly we have a long way to go.

The financial services industry has a rich history and, while a lot of good work has been done to encourage more people from more diverse backgrounds to progress and develop careers in the sector, there is a lot of work to be done.

I welcome the launch last year of the Ireland’s Women in Finance Charter and the enthusiasm among firms to see more women participating in leadership positions at all levels, from junior managers right up to the board room.

I am looking forward to learning more about how I can help to advance this agenda as part of the Ireland for Finance strategy. It is an excellent opportunity to harness the full potential of the talent pool that exists in the sector and address the underrepresentation of women at leadership levels.

The commitment that the first round of signatories to the charter is to be applauded and it will be important to build on that momentum and encourage as many firms as possible to join this initiative. As part of that process, I will challenge industry where necessary as I am committed to delivering meaningful outcomes for those working in financial services.

Gender is of course only one aspect of diversity and I want the industry here in Ireland to continue to play a leadership role as an inclusive sector that creates opportunities for people from as many different backgrounds as possible.

As the first female Minister of State in nearly 30 years I hope to be a visible symbol of the changes that have taken place in the last thirty years and I want to use the role to advocate for the changes that are still required, and I will work hard to bring that about. I am the first woman to have responsibility for the development of the IFS sector and I hope to be able to bring a fresh perspective and some new ideas to the challenges and growth opportunities the industry faces.

Q. The Great Financial Crisis of 2008-11 particularly was associated in Ireland and around the world with an outburst of righteous indignation at the perceived combination of self centred greed in the citadels of finance combined with a weak and ineffective public regulatory domain. This was unfortunately but understandably associated with a rise of misinformed attacks on the messenger rather than the real problems at the root of the crisis. Now that we are moving further beyond that, what long term lessons of the GFC that you believe we have learned from this?

While the crisis was well over a decade ago we are still feeling the effects of it in Ireland on a day to day basis, not least of which in the problems we face in replacing the lost years of growth and how that has impacted the supply of housing and health services available to people.

However painful that period was us here in Ireland at the time, I think we can see the benefit of some of those lessons learnt in the resilience that our economy showed in the face of the pandemic and the capacity of State to respond to the shock.

The IFS sector has an important role to play in the Irish economy in that it provides balance to the system and is a complement to the other large employers in technology, life sciences and pharmaceuticals.

For many people, the global regulatory response to reduce the concentration of risks in the banking sector had very real repercussions on the IFS sector in Ireland. While the net effect of the changes brought real opportunities in the growth of alternative assets and the acceleration of the aircraft leasing business, it also meant a severe contraction in the international banking sector in response to the tougher capital requirements.

That trend in banking has been reversed in part by the relocation of significant balance sheets to Ireland from the UK and I think Brexit, despite being a negative event, is having a net positive impact on the IFS sector.

However unwelcome the decision of the UK to leave the EU was, and we still face real difficulties in progressing a solution to the issues this creates for Northern Ireland, it has fundamentally altered the position of Ireland as a developed English speaking common law financial centre in the EU.

We were fortunate that the IFS industry in Ireland was a net benefactor from the changes brought by the Global Financial Crisis and one of the few sectors to benefit from Brexit. While I am very new in this job it is clear to me that the common success factor is the resilience and determination of the people who work in the sector.

That gives me great optimism for what we can achieve for people in IFS in the future and I am keen to share the story of how the sector has evolved and matured as an important EU financial centre in key markets around the world.

I believe it is the people in the IFS industry in Ireland that make it great and I believe there is an even stronger future ahead of us, if we work to build a more diverse, green and digital financial system here.

The crash in 2008 is a major hinge point in history, but I think when the time comes to review the period of time we are living through now, the major change will prove to be in the use of technology and the changes that will bring to financial services.

We are likely to look back on 2020 as a digital threshold year, when people became more fully aware of the potential of technology to make financial services work better for them and we will start to see an acceleration of those trends in both retail and institutional transactions in the coming years.

The digital finance and fintech agenda is a very exciting and challenging part of the work I will be leading here at the Department of Finance and I am looking forward to working with the people from across all the different industry sectors as well as the wider public sector to make a positive impact in this policy space.

Q. Financial Services and Irish Geography, Hybrid working and regionalisation. How can new post covid working practices in FS support the development of FS (and indeed other digitally enabled occupations) to boost employment in the less developed regions, outside of the advanced centres such as Dublin, and indeed Dun Laoghaire? What do you think of finance as a career for young people around Ireland?

As a newcomer to the sector, I am struck by the fact that such a big part of the success of IFS in Ireland has been the growth of the sector outside of Dublin. And a big part of the rationale for my prioritisation of reengaging with the industry in the key overseas markets, is that I want to share the unique story that Ireland has to tell, as a financial centre that goes beyond our capital city.

The pool of talent that we have available across the country has led to the development of important clusters outside of Dublin including Cork, Limerick, Kilkenny and in Donegal and I think there is huge potential for more firms to create value in their financial services businesses by investing in regional Ireland.

When you add into the mix the flexibility that is possible in work practices that the pandemic demonstrated, it only increases the attractiveness of financial services as a career choice for people regardless of their time in life.

Remote and hybrid working have shifted peoples’ perceptions of what is possible in the services industry in general, and I think Irish people and the Irish culture is well suited to competing for the new opportunities that will develop in the coming years.

As I look through the Action Plans from Ireland for Finance in previous years I am struck by how much work has been done on skills and talent development in the recent past, and this is an area where I want to focus on in my new role.

I want to continue to work in partnership with industry to make sure we are supporting people and firms in developing the key skills that will support our growth plans in green and digital finance.

I think financial services sector worldwide has a compelling future ahead of it and it can be a leader in delivering on the transition to a sustainable and digital economy.

Through the partnership with industry under the Ireland for Finance strategy, I want Government to play a key role in determining the role that Ireland will play in that future and how we can work in the coming years to shape that in a way that creates more opportunities for people here.
The changes taking place in how and where people work are still dynamic and it maybe some time before different industries and sectors settle on an equilibrium that works for them. I am optimistic that the IFS sector will benefit from these changes and will be working hard in the coming years to maximise the opportunities for people.

Q. Environmental Social & Governmental (ESG): The Irish IFS industry is Ireland’s cluster of leading global FS organisations. This makes available in the Irish jurisdiction employment in world class organisations with their own corporate cultures and cutting edge financial products. ESG is a concept and movement that seeks to provide an external environmental social and governance agenda that supplements the limits that traditionally have marked the boundaries of such corporations. How do you see this being meshed with the objectives of the Ireland for Finance strategy?

It is clear to me from reading the brief and the early engagement with companies that the IFS sector has been active on the ESG agenda for some time and that there have been some important interventions under the Ireland for Finance strategy. This includes the Roadmap for Sustainable Finance launched in 2021 and the Centre of Excellence funded by Skillnet and launched by Minister Harris in October 2022.

I welcome this investment in education to help firms better understand the process of taking into account the impact of climate, environmental and social considerations in their investment decisions.

There is clearly a strong commitment on behalf of this Government to the agenda and we have ambitious national and EU targets in this space. The recently launched climate action plan sets out a roadmap for taking decisive action to halve our emissions by 2030 and reach net zero no later than 2050, as committed to in the Programme for Government. The 2023 plan sets out how Ireland can accelerate the actions required to respond to the climate crisis by putting climate solutions at the centre of Ireland’s social and economic development.

The financial services sector, and IFS in particular has a unique role to play in this energy transition and I am looking forward to working on this agenda to see how we can all align our activities and make progress towards our targets.

I don’t underestimate the challenge that this places on companies. The ESG agenda is complex, multi-dimensional and dynamic at a time when there are multiple demands on the leadership teams of IFS firms. There are also risks that arise from the phenomenon of greenwashing and the EU institutions like ESMA have prioritised finding common solutions that will protect investors.

There is an obligation on all of us to work together on this as ultimately we will be judged by the outcomes that the decisions we take now deliver in the future, not the declarations we are making.

It is also clear to me that the changes underway in the governance of firms is not just a top down request from Government and regulators, the customers of IFS products and the people they are looking to attract as workers are demanding a coherent policy on ESG.

Through the Climate Action Plan we have a clear framework to work towards and one that is aligned with the EU and UN targets and the stakeholders in Ireland for Finance can play a real leadership role for our sector as part of that plan. I think we are well positioned to grow the number of people employed in IFS as a result of the transition to a carbon neutral future and the wider governance changes arising from the ESG agenda, and a better appreciation of the impacts of investment decisions should be better for society as a whole.