Classes of Records

The Central Bank of Ireland holds the following types of records:

  • policies and procedures governing the activities and transactions of the Central Bank's organisational units;
  • analysis, reports and reviews of performance against organisational strategies and objectives;
  • correspondence with the public, State agencies, international institutions, suppliers and regulated entities;
  • production and issue statistics in relation to euro banknotes and coins;
  • statistical data and analysis concerning the banking and financial system;
  • reports on monitoring and inspection of supervised financial entities;
  • records relating to the recruitment, management, remuneration, and entitlements of staff;
  • specialist advice, briefings, agendas, minutes, working papers, and consultations for internal use.

Classes of Records Exempt from Release

The Central Bank also holds other classes of records that are exempt or excluded from release under the Freedom of Information Act 2014.

Section 42(i) of the Freedom of Information Act 2014 exempts from release records held by the Central Bank the disclosure of which is prohibited by law, ie the Treaty of Rome, the ESCB Statute, or any of the Supervisory EU Legal Acts.

Paragraph (b) of Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Freedom of Information Act 2014 excludes the following categories of records from release:

  • Records containing confidential personal information relating to the financial or business affairs of any individual received by the Central Bank in the performance of its statutory functions;
  • Records containing confidential financial, commercial or regulatory information relating to the business affairs of any person or entity who holds or has held or who has applied for a licence, authorisation, approval or registration from the Central Bank, or is otherwise regulated by the Central Bank, received by the Central Bank in the performance of its statutory functions; and
  • Records held by the Central Bank on the Central Credit Register established by it under section 5(1) of the Credit Reporting Act 2013 or reports, analyses or statistics produced by the Central Bank under section 30(1) of that Act.

These exemptions and exclusions enable the Central Bank to meet the obligations of confidentiality and professional secrecy that are placed upon it through one of its main functions as a supervisor of regulated financial service providers and as a consequence of its membership of the European System of Central Banks.