Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I ask Mr. Sheridan about the issue of the credit servicing legislation. He wrote to me in August when I raised my concerns on that with him and made it clear in his letter that the preferred approach of the Central Bank was that the loan owners would be regulated. That would be the subject of the legislation. It was a policy decision of Government to go down the route that was travelled in the end whereby the intermediaries were regulated under the credit servicing legislation. My view is that there is a gap there because it is ultimately the owner of the loan who makes the critical decisions, as the Acting Chairman indicated, around interest rates, agreeing to restructure loans and, indeed, around enforcement and calling in a loan ultimately. Given the inability of the Central Bank to engage directly, it is just the intermediary like Pepper or whomever is regulated. Mr. Sibley said the Central Bank can contact them but there is no obligation on them to have any contact whatsoever. That is a real gap and it will play itself out over time. Mr. Sheridan has answered some questions on it there but if one takes the area of mortgages, there are now 10,000 PDH family home mortgages which are owned by unregulated loan owners and there is a real exposure there.

On the retail credit firms, can Mr. Sheridan clarify who they are typically? Is it credit unions? Who are the retail credit firms?