As part of the EU/IMF Programme of Financial Support, there were a number of conditions/actions which Ireland committed to, one of which was to develop a framework to govern the exercise of the State's ownership rights in the banks resulting from the capital injections, including to put in place relationship frameworks with the banks to establish the commercial basis for the banks' operations under government ownership. The commitment under paragraph 10 of the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies dated 10 February 2012 indicated that the Minister for Finance was "finalizing relationship frameworks with the covered banks."
On this basis, Relationship Frameworks were put in place by my Department with each of the banks in which the State acquired an interest in the context of the financial crisis to govern the relationship between the State, as shareholder, and each bank. They were designed to recognise the separation of each bank from the State, to ensure their businesses would be run on a commercial, cost effective and independent basis designed to ensure the value of the banks as an asset to the State, and limit the State's intervention to the extent necessary to protect the public interest.
IBRC had a Relationship Framework in place from 2009. A revised Relationship Framework with IBRC was published on March 30, 2012 in line with the introduction of Relationship Frameworks for each of the banks in which the State had acquired an interest in the context of the financial crisis. That followed considerable interaction with the management and Board of IBRC.
