Mr. Ger Deering:

It is important to draw a distinction between ourselves and the Central Bank, which is the actual regulator in this area and which can make rules across all the organisations. I know the Senator described us as reactive but we can only respond to a complaint from an individual. We do not have a regulatory role and that is how it should be because the Central Bank has that role. We can only deal with a situation where we have a complaint. That said, we can order banks, financial institutions or insurance companies to change a practice but, again, only in the context of a complaint we would have received. An important first step for us was to make our service more accessible to vulnerable people. That is probably the most important thing we can do. In terms of actual powers, as far as I am aware, the FSO has more powers than any other financial services ombudsman. We can award compensation of up to €250,000 and there is no limit on rectification, which can be extremely important. An example would be if somebody's house burned down and, after assessing the claim, the insurance company says the customer did not provide certain information when he or she took out the insurance policy.

In such a situation, if I deem that to be unreasonable, I can direct the insurance company to pay the claim, and there is no limit on the amount payable. We are anxious to retain the powers of the Financial Services Ombudsman and are happy that they will be retained in the new legislation. New legislation is required to amalgamate the two offices. There are some further proposals in the new legislation concerning an extension of the six-year time limit for the publication of findings. We welcome these proposals and think they could be very useful. If our findings could be published, people could know about our decisions and be very clear on the outcome of such a situation. We cannot yet publish our decisions but in the next week or so we will publish case studies, which will give people an understanding of the kinds of complaints we deal with and the outcomes they can expect. It is important to draw a distinction between our role as ombudsman dealing with individual complaints and the role of the regulator. Our role in that regard is to draw the attention of the Central Bank to practices with which we are not happy and with which we have difficulties, and we do so. The codes are strong if implemented.