Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 July 2013
227. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Finance if he will set out the responsibilities he believes the role of public interest director in a State owned or partially State owned bank entails. [34328/13]
View answerAs I have stated many times before, the primary duty and responsibility of the public interest directors as well as all the other directors is to ensure that the institution on whose board they serve is run properly and appropriately. They serve on many Bank committees as well as the Boards themselves and their breath of experience brings a deeper and wider knowledge base and understanding to all the Banks which they serve. Our stated policy is get the Banks fully functioning and run on a commercial, cost effective and independent basis to ensure their value as an asset to the State. The public interest directors have an essential role to play in assisting our aims.
Of course, the legal position is that any director appointed to the board of the covered institutions whether under the Credit Institutions (Financial Support) Scheme 2008 or otherwise is subject to the requirements of company law in relation to the discharge of their responsibilities as a company director. As such, the director is legally bound to act in what he or she believes are the interests of the separate legal entity that is the institution itself. These are the directors so-called fiduciary responsibilities. To address the scope for actual and perceived conflicts between the fiduciary duties of the directors of financial institutions under company law and the wider public interest in circumstances where those institutions have received huge financial support from the State, legal clarity, not just to the role of the public interest director but to that of the entire boards of those institutions, was provided under Section 48 of the Credit Institutions (Stabilisation) Act 2010. It provides that the overriding duty of directors of the covered institutions relates to the public interest as set out in the Act. This recognises the fundamental role that all public interest directors serve.
