Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I have one case and I will not mention names but it concerns a complaint about ATMs. A couple had €800 taken out of their account. The bank suggested that they had taken it out themselves but they were adamant that they had not done so. They had been customers of the bank for many years, both were working and were in a different part of the country at the time that the money was withdrawn. They lived in Dublin and the money was taken out somewhere in Limerick. They made a complaint but it was not upheld. It would appear from this case that it comes down to one person's word against another's. We know there are mechanisms through which cameras taking photographs of people inputting their PIN can lead to money being taken out of people's account without their knowledge. What if someone cannot prove it one way or another? How does the Ombudsman deal with a case like that? If the Ombudsman does not uphold such a complaint because there is no evidence to prove the case one way or the other, is there somewhere else such people can go? These people feel that their good name has been impugned because the suggestion implicit in the decision is that they must have taken out their own money and then tried to con the bank.