ISE offers ‘tentative support’ for plan to drop ban on short selling of stocks

THE management of the Irish Stock Exchange (ISE) said it tentatively supports the dropping of the current ban on short selling of shares in Ireland.

However, the ISE’s chiefs are hesitant in pushing the merits of a disclosure regime as an alternative, given the circumstances surrounding the publicly quoted Irish banks at present.

Appearing before yesterday’s sitting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Economic RegulatoryAffairs, ISE chairmanPadraic O’Connor said a move to a disclosure regime, along the lines of many countries where the short selling ban has already been lifted, would be “logical” but ISE would be hesitant to go there immediately.