The Central Bank Commission is made up of the following members:

Ex-officio members

Governor of the Central Bank

The tenth Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland, Patrick Honohan, was appointed on 26 September 2009. Before his appointment as Governor, he was Professor of International Financial Economics and Development at Trinity College Dublin from 2007. Prior to this, he spent almost a decade at the World Bank where he was Senior Advisor on financial sector policy. He was previously Research Professor with the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin (1990-98), Economic Advisor to Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald (1981-82 and 1984-86) and he spent several years as an economist at the Central Bank of Ireland (1976-81 and 1984-86), and at the International Monetary Fund (1971-73). A graduate of University College Dublin, he received his Ph.D. in Economics from the London School of Economics in 1978. He has taught Economics at the LSE and at the University of California-San Diego, the Australian National University and University College Dublin, as well as at Trinity College. In recent years, his research has mainly focused on monetary and financial sector policy.

The appointment of the Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland is made by the President for a seven year term.

Deputy Governor (Financial Regulation)

Matthew Elderfield was appointed to the position of the Deputy Governor (Financial Regulation) in January 2010. Prior to taking up this role, he was Chief Executive of the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) from 2007-2009. Prior to joining the BMA, he spent eight years at the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) as a Head of Department in a variety of posts, responsible for exchange and clearing house supervision, for secondary markets and listing policy and for banking supervision. Before joining the FSA, Matthew Elderfield established the European operations of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and held posts at the London Investment Banking Association, the British Bankers Association and a Washington-DC based consultancy firm, the Institute for Strategy Development.

Deputy Governor (Central Banking)

Stefan Gerlach was appointed Deputy Governor (Central Banking) in September, 2011. Prior to joining the Bank, he served as Professor of Monetary Economics and Managing Director of the Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability at the University of Frankfurt, as CEPR Research Fellow and a Fellow of the CFS. He has served as Head of Secretariat to the Committee on the Global Financial System at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), as Executive Director (Research) at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Director of the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research. Before joining the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, he was a staff economist at the BIS. 

Secretary General of the Department of Finance

Mr. Kevin Cardiff is the Secretary General of the Department of Finance. Mr. Cardiff joined the Department of the Public Service (DPS) in 1984. He joined the Department of Finance in 1987. He has had a wide range of roles in the Department of Public Service and the Department of Finance, including in the human resources and industrial relations areas. Following a short stint on the Government bond dealing desk before the establishment of the National Treasury Management Agency, Mr. Cardiff worked on monetary and exchange rate policy in the 1990s. Subsequently he worked on pensions policy and organisational issues, such as Freedom of Information and Standards in Public Office. More recently he was the head of Taxation and Financial Services Division (subsequently the Financial Services Division) within the Department until his appointment as Secretary General in February 2011. Mr. Cardiff is a graduate of the University of Washington and University College Dublin.

Commission members

As provided for in legislation, the terms of office of the first appointees will vary in length in order to ensure that future vacancies on the Commission will be staggered. The appointees, their terms of office and their dates of appointment, are as follows:

Members appointed by the Minister for Finance with effect from 1 October 2010

Professor John Fitzgerald (5 years)

Professor FitzGerald is a Research Professor with the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin working on macro-economic and energy policy. He has published widely in these fields.

He is a past President of the Irish Economic Association and of the EUROFRAME group of European economic research institutes. He is a former member of the National Economic and Social Council, of the Northern Ireland Authority for Energy Regulation and of the EU "Group for Economic Analysis" advising the President of the EU Commission.

He studied at University College Dublin and he holds masters degrees in both History and Economics. He began his career in the Department of Finance in 1972 and he moved to the Economic and Social Research Institute in 1984.

Mr. Michael Soden (4 years)

Mr. Soden is a well known figure in banking circles and commentator with extensive international banking experience.

He is a former CEO of Bank of Ireland and Head of Retail Banking at National Australia Bank. He was CEO at Security Pacific from 1985 to 1991 having previously been Global Head of Derivatives at Citicorp/Citibank.

He holds a B.Comm from UCD and, following graduation, spent 4 years with Shell as a credit analyst, 1 year with Xerox as a sales representative and 2 years with ICC as a loan officer in Cork.

Mr. Des Geraghty (4 years)

Mr. Geraghty is a former politician and trade union leader. He was president of SIPTU from 1999 to 2004.

He was appointed to the European Parliament in 1992 for the Dublin constituency. He was a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in the European Parliament. He is a former member of the RTÉ Authority, the Board of FÁS, the National Competitiveness Council, the Affordable Homes Partnership and the National Economic and Social Council and a former Chair of Poetry Ireland.

He has published several books including a memoir of folk singer Luke Kelly.

Professor Blanaid Clarke (3 years)

Professor Clarke is Associate Professor in Corporate Law in the Law Faculty, University College Dublin where she teaches at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in Corporate Governance, Corporate Finance Law, Contract Law and Financial Services Law.

She is a founding member of the Institute of Directors’ Centre for Corporate Governance at University College Dublin. She also works with the Irish Takeover Panel.

Professor Clarke holds a PhD in Law from the University of Manchester. The title of her thesis was “Directors And The Frustration Of Hostile Takeovers of Irish Listed Companies: Legal and Regulatory Responses”.

Her areas of research interest include Corporate Governance, Takeovers and Mergers Law (particularly the Takeover Directive) and Securities Regulation. She has produced numerous articles and papers in these areas and also published texts on Mergers and Takeovers Law and Contract Law. 

Member appointed by the Minister for Finance with effect from 8 March 2011

Dr. Alan Ahearne (4 years)

Dr. Ahearne lectures in economics in the J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He acted as Special Advisor to the Minister for Finance from March 2009 to March 2011.   In this role, he advised the Minister on economic, budgetary and financial policy in responding to the economic and financial crisis.

He is a Non-Resident Fellow at Bruegel and is a Research Associate at the Institute for International Integration Studies at Trinity College Dublin. Before joining NUIG, he was Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC, where he worked for seven years.

He has taught economics at Carnegie Mellon University, University College Dublin, Dublin City University, and the University of Limerick.  He began his professional career with Coopers & Lybrand and also worked for Bank of Ireland Group Treasury.

Dr. Ahearne's areas of expertise are macroeconomics and international finance and his research has been published in leading international journals.  His research includes studies on property markets in industrial countries; global current account imbalances and exchange rates; and the economic performance of the euro area.

Dr. Ahearne received a B.B.S. from the University of Limerick in 1989, an M.Econ.Sc. from University College Dublin in 1991 and an M.Sc. (1995) and a Ph.D. (1998), both in economics, from Carnegie Mellon University.  At Carnegie Mellon, he received several awards and honours, including the William Larimer Mellon Doctoral Fellowship (1993-1996) and the Excellence in Teaching Award (1997).  His Ph.D. dissertation advisor at Carnegie Mellon was Finn Kydland, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics in 2004.

Secretary to the Commission

Mr. Neil Whoriskey

 Mr. Whoriskey is Head of the General Secretariat Division of the Central Bank of Ireland.

Commission sub-committees

Audit Committee

• Blanaid Clarke (Chair)
• John Fitzgerald
• Alan Ahearne

Risk Committee

• Des Geraghty (Chair)
• Michael Soden
• Matthew Elderfield
• Stefan Gerlach 

Budget and Remuneration Committee

• Michael Soden (Chair)
• Blanaid Clarke
• Stefan Gerlach  
• Matthew Elderfield