Mr. Ger Deering:

It was a mix of all of the above, but the most important thing was that the Oireachtas in drafting and enacting the legislation 12 years ago put mediation as the primary reason. Our legislation was ahead of its time. Mediation was not quite as well known or popular then but our legislation is very clear that the financial services ombudsman shall resolve disputes by mediation and, where necessary, by investigation and adjudication. As such, it was the preferred option. There are about three more statements within the legislation providing that it should be informal, without regard to technical or legal form and all of that. Yet, we developed in a different way. I gather that there is a Second Reading in the House today of the Mediation Bill. At both European and national level, mediation is a preferred option. During mediation week a couple of months ago, Ms Cassidy and I visited the Four Courts and heard the President of the High Court, the President of the Circuit Court and the President of the District Court all pushing for mediation. There are many reasons it is the best solution. We discovered in our research that providers misunderstood mediation and did not actually understand how it operates. It was about overcoming some of those misunderstandings and fears.

Internationally, I note our counterparts in the UK. We have a staff of 34, including an ombudsman and deputy ombudsman. In the UK, they have an ombudsman, 300 ombudsmen and a staff of 4,000. It is a very different scale but they are hugely into mediation. We looked as part of our research at New Zealand and Australia where we saw telephone mediation in place. I had experienced telephone mediation through the labour relations agencies in Northern Ireland which do a lot of it. It was by looking at other organisations, including organisations similar to ourselves, that we saw that it seemed to be working everywhere else.