Credit Institutions (Financial Support) (Revocation) Scheme 2025: Motion
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-10
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Ollie Crowe (FF), Industrial and Commercial Panel

I am speaking on this issue because Senator Casey is away in Brussels this week.
Fianna Fáil supports these motions because they are practical, timely and necessary. They recognise how far our banking system has come since the global financial crisis and they remove obligations that are now outdated and fully replaced by modern European regulation.
These schemes were created in 2008, when Ireland faced a financial emergency. Our banks were under severe pressure, and urgent action was needed to stabilise the system and protect depositors. The Oireachtas passed the Credit Institutions (Financial Support) Act 2008, giving the Minister for Finance the power to provide a State guarantee. This led to the CIFS scheme. It guaranteed a wide range of bank liabilities for a two-year period and imposed strict obligations on banks that availed of the guarantee. Before CIFS expired in 2010, a second scheme, the ELG scheme, was developed. This scheme provided a more limited guarantee, mostly for deposits and certain types of bank debt. The ELG scheme was extended several times, and while it closed to new liabilities in 2013, guarantees remained in place until 2018.
These schemes were essential at the time. They helped stabilise our banking system, maintain confidence and ensure that depositors and businesses had the security they needed during an economic crisis.
Today all guaranteed liabilities under these schemes have expired. The contractual obligations arising from the original guarantee agreements were formally released in 2022, and the broader European regulatory environment has completely changed since 2008.
Despite this, however, some obligations contained in the schedules of these schemes technically remain in place for Bank of Ireland, AIB and Permanent TSB. These obligations relate to areas such as restructuring, board representation, commercial conduct, remuneration, transparency and reporting. While once necessary, all these requirements are now fully duplicated, and in many cases expanded on, by EU law and by the Central Bank's supervisory framework.
Revoking the schemes will remove obligations that no longer have any purpose; eliminate duplication between outdated national requirements and the modern EU regulatory regime; provide clarity for the banks that the remaining legacy provisions from these guarantee schemes are now fully closed out; and support a cleaner, simpler regulatory framework.
It is important to note that this does not in any way relax the oversight of Irish banks. The core prudential obligations that matter - those covering capital, liquidity, risk management, transparency and reporting - are all governed by EU legislation, including the capital requirements regulation and directive. These are comprehensive frameworks that apply to all credit institutions in the EU and are enforced by the Central Bank of Ireland.
The reporting requirements alone under the CRR are far more extensive than anything contained in these older schemes. Banks must report detailed financial, operational and risk data on a regular basis; they must comply with strict rules on remuneration, conduct and governance; and they remain fully subject to the obligations that come with being regulated entities in the EU banking system. In short, all the meaningful protections are still very much in place, and none of those protections depends on these now outdated guarantee schemes.
The guarantee schemes introduced in 2008 and 2009 played an important role during a time of financial stress. They served their purpose well and helped safeguard the State's financial system at a critical moment. That moment, however, has passed. Today the remaining obligations are outdated, unnecessary and fully replaced by stronger European rules. Revoking the schemes is not only logical; it is good regulatory practice, it reduces duplication and it reflects the stability that now exists in our banking sector.
For these reasons, Fianna Fáil supports the motions to approve the Credit Institutions (Financial Support) (Revocation) Scheme 2025 and the Credit Institutions (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Revocation) Scheme 2025.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:26+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-10