THE GOVERNOR of the Central Bank, John Hurley, has signalled that he will retire from the position on September 25th.

His departure date emerged as senior positions within the new Central Bank of Ireland Commission were advertised yesterday.

A spokesman for the Central Bank said that Mr Hurley had written to Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan to say that he will step down in September. He had agreed to stay on after his term of office ended in March due to the continuing financial crisis.

The Central Bank published advertisements yesterday for the positions of “assistant director general – financial operations” and “assistant director general – financial institution supervisor”.

The roles will be in the tier below two new senior positions within the new Central Bank Commission – head of central banking and head of financial supervision – reporting to the governor.

The changes follow the Government’s decision to merge the existing roles of the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator into a single regulatory entity, the Central Bank of Ireland Commission.

The existing role of prudential director, which currently works within the Financial Regulator, is being split into three assistant director general roles – for financial institution supervision, financial markets supervision and regulator risk and enforcement.

Con Horan, currently prudential director, will move to the role of assistant director general – regulatory risk and enforcement. He will take up this position once the role of assistant director for financial institution supervision is filled.

They will report to the new head of financial supervision, who assumes the existing role of chief executive of the regulator.

This role is being filled on an interim basis by Mary O’Dea, the regulator’s consumer director, while recruitment specialists Spencer Stuart have been hired to fill the role on a permanent basis.

PricewaterhouseCoopers is seeking to fill the other positions.

The person named to the other advertised role – assistant director general for financial operations – will report to the incoming head of central banking, Tony Grimes, who is currently director general at the Central Bank.