Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The whistleblowers who supplied the dossier to the Central Bank are a number of agents who felt under immense pressure from the company to engage in the type of activities against which the Central Bank has found. I hope the case is not over because other areas need to be delved into. Where a servicer which has a contract with a financial institution to service loans, whether in arrears or not, is penalised or found to be in breach of regulations, one can imagine the servicer might say it has nothing to do with it, that it does not own the loan but has a specific contract, which none of us will see. What kind of system should be put in place to protect consumers? BPFI has made a particular submission saying it should be the service provider, which is what the legislation anticipates. However, in a case where a service provider will not take responsibility for issues, how does BPFI believe the owner should be made a party to the complaint? I look at it from the consumer's point of view and I anticipate a long, drawn-out legal process between the servicer and the owner. If an entity is regulated, I go to the Financial Services Ombudsman. In this case, the service provider will be regulated, but not the owner. The Department is trying not to regulate the owner but to go half way there. Where the regulated service provider fails to stand up to an issue, we will have to draw the unregulated entity in, and it could be a minefield.