The regulator has also placed ‘officers’ in each of the banks to scrutinise their future operations.

20 officers have been employed to be placed on-site across the banks.

The moves were agreed as part of the €500bn deposit guarantee introduced by the Government to prop up the Irish banking sector amid the global financial crisis.

Elsewhere, European shares have dived in opening trade this morning, tracking steep falls across Asia on global recession fears.

Dublin’s ISEQ index was down almost 3.5% in the first 10 minutes of trade.

Irish financial stocks were all lower.

London’s FTSE 100 tumbled over 3% in opening trade, while the Frankfurt’s DAX index also fell by 3% in early trades as investors fretted over potentially weak corporate earnings. The Paris CAC plunged fell 4.9%.

Japan’s Nikkei index plunged 9.6% earlier this morning to end at a five-year low.

Meanwhile, a growing list of countries have been affected by the global financial crisis in recent days.

Among those now affected by the credit crunch are: Iceland, Hungary, Pakistan, Ukraine, Serbia and Belarus which are all in discussions with the International Monetary Fund.

Capital has also flowed out of countries such as South Africa, South Korea and Argentina which yesterday announced it was nationalising its pension funds.