by Eileen McElligott
Maurice O’Connell was born at Glin Road, Moyvane in May 1936. His parents, Thomas and Mary (nee McMahon) O’Connell were both Principal Teachers in the local National School. Maurice must have been a very welcome addition to their family of six daughters! Another son, Thomas, followed later but died in infancy, and another daughter, Anna. 
Pictured above are the current members of the
EMI (European Monetary Institute) Council.
Maurice O’Connell is in the back row, third from the left.
Following in the footsteps of his father and uncles, Maurice commenced
his secondary education in St. Michael’s College, Listowel of which
his grandfather, also Maurice O’Connell, was a co-founder and a brilliant
Classics master for fifty years.
After a remarkable Intermediate Certificate in which he got first
place in Ireland in Greek, he studied in St. Brendan’s Seminary, Killarney
where he was also an outstanding student having got an illustrious
result in his Leaving Certificate at sixteen years of age. He then
went to Maynooth Ecclesiastical College and after three years he commenced
a teaching career in Dublin, completed his M.A. in classics and subsequently
taught in the International College in St. Gallen before returning
to Dublin to embark on a Civil Service career. He was appointed Administrative
Officer in the Department of Finance, and later Second Secretary in
the same Department before his appointment as Governor of the Central
Bank in 1994.
Married to Dubliner Marjorie Treacy, they have four adult children.
Their sons Thomas and Martin, like five of Maurice’s nephews, chose
the medical profession, while his two daughters Catherine and Marjorie
is working on a Master’s degree.
Though he has traveled widely in Europe and beyond in the course of
his career and has conferred with Princes and Prime Ministers, his
family, his staff and the people of Moyvane – and his Glin Road neighbours
in particular – come first.
Asked in a recent newspaper interview where his favourite place was,
he simply replied “Kerry!”. Go mba fada buan é.
Background (source InterMoney.com)
 Central Bank Governor Maurice O’Connell “All our words, thoughts and actions are in euro.” |
(CENTRAL BANK OF IRELAND)
Maurice O’Connell
DATE OF BIRTH:
1936 Moyvane, County Kerry.
EDUCATION:
Postgraduate degree in Ancient Classics having studied at University College Dublin and St Patrick’s College in Maynooth.
CAREER:
DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE 1962-1994 Wide-ranging experience within all functions of the Department of Finance during the 32 years he spent there, rising to second secretary in charge of the Finance Division. During this time O’Connell held Ireland’s position on the EU monetary committee between 1988 and 1994.
Additionally, he worked for periods in the Department of Public Service
and Department of Economic Planning and Development and thus has wide
experience of longer-term planning. He also held the position of director
at the European Investment Bank.
CBoI Since 1994 O’Connell was appointed governor of the Central
Bank of Ireland in 1994, which is due to run for a seven-year period
and thus will be Ireland’s representative on the ECB Governing Council
until 2001 (no mandatory retirement age exists for the governor).
Unusually, he was not Secretary of State for Finance before becoming
Central Bank governor and therefore broke with previous tradition,
though this was due to the coincidence of the previous central bank
governor and the Department of Finance Secretary of State retiring
at the same time. The preparation for EMU will also see his position
strengthened within the Central Bank of Ireland, as forthcoming legislation
ensures that his status as the bank’s only executive director means
that all authority and responsibility for the exercise of EU monetary
policy will be vested in him.
ASSESSMENT:
O’Connell’s participation in the ECB Governing Council is likely to
be as a thinker (says little but knows a lot) rather than as a leader
on monetary policy discussions. He will approach monetary policy from
a hawkish perspective however, though this reflects the current national
consensus in Ireland over the overheated state of the economy rather
than any driving theoretical foundations. In the coming years, he
should remain dominated by national thinking rather than pan- European
concerns. He has stated in the past that EMU is no panacea for European
structural difficulties such as unemployment, suggesting a reluctance
to pursue interventionist thinking from politicians in ECB monetary
affairs. The 1993 IEP devaluation also appears to have left him generally
more respectful of the signals that financial markets can provide.
Coming
soon!
Some interview clips that Maurice gave to Irish National Television
regarding Ireland’s preparation for European Monetary Union (EMU),
when the 12 member states of the European Union (EU) will on 1st
January 2002, begin to circulate the new Euro currency. These clips
will be brought to you as soon as possible.
| For a man who has had his name on every Irish Banknote during his tenure as Central Bank Governor, it is quite an achievement for him to be ushering in this era of change for the whole of Europe, despite his prolific career so far. |  |
