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Ireland may have 'over-corrected' on regulation SIMON CARSWELL Wastiington Correspondent

Ireland may have over-correct­ed how it regulates banks and financial services firms and should be "very careful" with further regulations to avoid losing business overseas, one of five commissioners at the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the country's markets regulator, has warned.

Daniel Gallagher, one of two Republican commission­ers at the SEC, said regulatory change has been "pretty in­tense" over the last three years in response to the fman­cial crisis and that these should be reviewed before fur­ther regulations are intro­duced. •

"At some point it's got to stop and people need to evalu­ate what is the impact globally and domestically; I think Ire­land has hit that point," he said.

Speaking in Washington ahead of his arrival in Ireland today to speak at a European corporate governance confer­ence, Mr Gallagher said the cri­sis meant it was "appropriate" to overhaul regulation but that over-regulation had to be avoided.

Spectre " I do think you need to keep tabs on whether it is too much because you could really face the spectre of losing big chunks of an industry that is very important to Ireland," he said.

He echoed comments by for­

mer Taoiseach John Bruton, now ambassador for the IFSC, and AIB deputy chairman Mi­chael Somers who last week warned about the consequenc­es of regulation going too far.

Empathised Mr Gallagher said that he em­pathised with the departing fi­nancial regulator Matthew El-derfield who said last week that arguments for less regula­tion should be given "short shrift" if they were a "vaguely articulated concern" about burden.

"He was brought in at a tough time. There was a lot of

• Daniel Gallagher at the US SEC echoed comments made by John Bruton (left)

public outrage and he had to show toughness. I do think he understands the competitive issues," said the SEC commis­sioner of Mr Elderfield.

"At the same time my guess is that he doesn't want folks to forget the depths from which they came a few years ago and journey back there."

Mr Gallagher warned that if the UK opted out of new pan-European regulations of fmancial services it could "sti­fle" what made certain coun­tries like Ireland special.

"It would certainly be dis­ruptive if Ireland was subject­ed to EU-wide restrictions and London wasn't," he said.