Late next month Patrick Honohan will sign off as governor of the Central Bank of Ireland, after just more than six years in the role.

His time as governor coincided with the biggest financial crisis the State had faced since the establishment of the Central Bank in 1943.

Honohan took office almost a year after the Irish banking sector had collapsed and the blanket bank guarantee had been introduced by the then Fianna Fáil-led government.

The economy was in meltdown with Ireland experiencing one of the world’s most destructive property crashes.

Coming as he did from academia (he was professor of international financial economics and development at Trinity College Dublin), Honohan’s appointment was something of a watershed for the Central Bank, breaking the link of senior civil servants, usually from the Department of Finance, being given this plum role at Dame Street.

Personal interventions

His time as governor was book-ended by two significant personal interventions.

On November 18th 2010, with the Government continuing to dismiss reports of the State seeking a bailout from the EU and the IMF, Honohan rang RTÉ's Morning Ireland radio show from Frankfurt to tell the public in an eight-minute interview that it was his "expectation" that we would access a bailout loan from the Troika.

It was a solo run that didn't amuse the Government. Kevin Cardiff, a senior member of the Department of Finance at the time, told the Oireachtas Banking Inquiry earlier this year he would have liked an hour's notice from Honohan.

The Governor told the committee this would have been a “big mistake” and would have been “almost a surrendering” of his independence from Government.

Honohan also insisted he was not doing the ECB's bidding by conducting the interview with RTÉ. It's no secret that the ECB was anxious for Ireland to enter a bailout given its exposure to Irish banks via emergency liquidity assistance.

Onerous terms

Ironically, Honohan didn’t believe the agreed bailout programme would work given the onerous financial terms. This changed when the terms of the European loans were renegotiated and the IBRC promissory note was pushed out over a 40-year period.

The other big item that propelled Honohan into the spotlight, and the one he is thought to be most satisfied to have pushed through, was his decision to introduce tougher limits on mortgage lending by banks from last January.

Save for a limited number of exceptions, borrowers now must have a 20 per cent deposit before they can be approved for a home loan.

Honohan’s decision put him at odds with the department, which argued in its submission on the proposals that there was a “strong case” for a “more nuanced and graduated approach” to the introduction of new rules.

He held firm, making only a small concession for first-time buyers and he has continued to turn a deaf ear to calls from Minister for Finance Michael Noonan for a review of the rules, which appear to have dampened demand for mortgages in Dublin.

Quinn Insurance

Honohan’s time in charge involved more besides. Quinn Insurance was placed into administration in 2010 amid much controversy.

The governor was centrally involved in the liquidation of IBRC in February 2013, oversaw bank stress tests and the recapitalisation of the domestic banks in 2011, and the transition last year to the Single Supervisory Mechanism. A consolidation of credit unions also took place on his watch, notably the takeover of Newbridge Credit Union by Permanent TSB.

He also took the decision to move the bank from its Dame Street headquarters and relocate to a building in the Dublin docklands previously earmarked for Anglo Irish Bank.

This is not to suggest that Honohan got everything right. Many would argue that that the structural changes that have taken place to modernise the regulator haven’t gone far enough.

Honohan would never hold himself out as a management guru and it was his former deputy governor and head of financial regulation Matthew Elderfield who did much of the heavy lifting on reform before departing for a position with Lloyds Banking Group in the UK in 2013.

There have been a number of departures from the senior ranks in the past few years that might be down to public sector pay cuts but they might also be due to the continued hierarchical structure within the Central Bank.

Many question how the financial issues that rocked insurer RSA Ireland in 2013 went unnoticed for so long, especially given the extra staffing allocated to the bank. Others argue that it took too long to get to grips with the mortgage arrears crisis.

At 66, Honohan is likely to slip back into a “quasi academic” role involving writing and maybe 10 or 12 conferences a year. After six years of firefighting, he’s earned the right to a quieter life.

Twitter: @CiaranHancock1