Patrick Honohan

Patrick Honohan (born October 1949, in Dublin) is an economist who was Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland from September 2009 to November 2015. Among his main tasks was to help to resolve the 2008–2012 Irish banking crisis. He is married with one son.

Education

Honohan graduated with a B.A. in Economics and Mathematics at University College Dublin in 1971 and received an M.A. from the same institution in 1973. From the London School of Economics he received an M.Sc. in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics (1974) and a PhD (1978).

Professional career

Before pursuing postgraduate research, Honohan took a position with the International Monetary Fund in 1971. While completing his PhD in London, he joined the economics staff of the Central Bank of Ireland. During the 1980s, he was Economic Advisor to Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald and subsequently began working with the World Bank. Honohan then spent seven years as a Research Professor with the Economic and Social Research Institute before returning to the World Bank in 1998 as a Lead Economist and subsequently Senior Advisor on financial sector policy.

The author of numerous academic papers and monographs, he has taught economics at the LSE, University of California, San Diego, the Australian National University and University College Dublin. He was appointed Professor of International Financial Economics and Development in 2007 at Trinity College Dublin.

In September 2009, Honohan was appointed as the tenth governor of the Central Bank of Ireland. In this position he has acquired a reputation as a "straight talker". His May 2010 Report on the Irish Banking Crisis provided an in depth analysis of the regulatory and supervisory shortcomings that contributed to the Irish Banking Crisis of 2008-12.

Honohan in March 2015 had to return to Leinster House to clarify his earlier comments there that Anglo Irish Bank should have been allowed to fail — a remark which he said was a "senior moment" and should have been qualified as applying only if the Government had known on the night how costly the guarantee of Anglo's liabilities would be, which was not the case

See also

• Irish property bubble
• Post-2008 Irish economic downturn
• National Asset Management Agency

References

Government offices
Preceded by John Hurley	Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland 2009–present	Incumbent