Dr Frances Ruane, the chair of the National Competitiveness Council of Ireland. Photo: Mark Condren
There will be a heavyweight line-up at Banking and Payments Federation Ireland’s annual banking conference on Tuesday at the Mansion House in Dublin. Among the speakers will be Finance Minister Michael McGrath , who will open the conference, and Philip Lane, the chief economist of the European Central Bank.
They will be joined by Dr Frances Ruane, the chair of the National Competitiveness Council of Ireland, and Michael O’Flynn, CEO of the O’Flynn Group. The theme of the conference is “future-focused retail banking”. Mr Lane will do a “fireside chat”, in which he will discuss inflation in the euro area, expected to average 2.5pc this year, slightly ahead of target.
Also on Tuesday, the Central Bank of Ireland will be publishing its first Financial Stability Review of the year. This is the report in which the bank evaluates the risks facing the financial system, and assesses its resilience. The bank sets out what policy actions it is taking to safeguard financial stability.
Completing a busy day on Tuesday, the Department of Finance and the Department of Enterprise are due to publish a joint report on the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the labour force. The research is expected to look at what occupations are most exposed to AI, and how its impact varies across different demographic groups.
There’s a biomethane conference at Croke Park in Wednesday, where the industry will debate what progress is being made towards the national decarbonisation targets set for 2030. It will be attended by developers, farmers, planners and financiers.
Some related events are being staged to coincide with the conference. For example Greengate Biogas, a new biomethane consortium, will have an official launch at the Croke Park Hotel that day.
This week’s releases from the Central Statistics Office will include the Live Register, published on Monday, and the number of new vehicles licensed in May, to be published on Wednesday. Watch out for the figures on electric vehicles, to see if the slump in their sales continues.