powers of regulation to the Central Bank will be useless unless there is a fundamental change in the culture of the organisation. This does not require a complete change of personnel, but a change of key personnel." The Irish Times, a national "newspaper of record" opined that "the Financial Regulator has a death wish and its regulatory edict verges on the Pythonesque, eating into what is left of its credibility." Staff, who worked 32.5 hours per week or 6.5 hours a day, went on strike in November 2009 Controversy The Financial Regulator was warned by the German regulator, BaFin, as early as 2004 that Sachsen LB's troubled Irish subsidiaries were involved in highly risky and under-scrutinised transactions worth as much as €30bn or 20 times the parent bank's capitalisation. Despite the warning, in 2007 the Regulator approved another Sachsen investment vehicle and two months later the stable of off-balance sheet companies needed a €17.3bn bail-out from the German association of savings banks to keep Sachsen afloat. The Irish Brokers Association said there was "intense frustration and annoyance" about excessive red tape and the FR refusing to listen to them in 2005. The same year the Regulator was criticised for publishing a report, which it was said, read a bit like a promotional brochure for the money lending industry. It included a section devoted to arguing why moneylenders should be allowed to charge as much as they do. (188%-plus collection fees of up to 11%.) The New York Times referred to the Irish insurance industry as the "Wild West of European finance" in April 2005 which was seen to underline the fragility of the Country's Financial Regulation system. The Australian Authorities warned the Financial Regulator of the activities of person connected with the largest bankruptcy in that country's history. The FR did nothing, he went on to commit a US$500 million fraud and pleaded guilty in the US despite the crime being committed in Ireland. Their consumer panel stated that the regulator was slow to respond to consumer issues and '"appears to seek complexity and obstacles rather than to seek consumer-oriented solutions to current and emerging problems"'. And it warned that this approach can undermine consumer confidence in the "efficacy of the regulatory process. " The same month in 2006, a government-appointed panel that consisted of banking and insurance representatives revealed widespread dissatisfaction with the regulator’s skills base. The regulator’s industry