Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

While I accept that any regulated entity would be subject to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman, and I do not have any reason to doubt that, the problem is that this legislation is now allowing for credit servicing firms, which interact with consumers, to be unregulated. While heretofore one could take a case to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman against a credit card servicing firm, that option will no longer be available under this legislation. The only recourse would be to the loan owner. There is an issue here in terms of access to the ombudsman. There will be no right to take a case against the individual or the company that is sending the letters or making the telephone calls; a case will have to be taken against the owner in the future. That builds on the point I made earlier. A consumer would no longer be dealing with a company which provides the normal services a credit firm would provide, but rather a company which engages with people who are in financial distress and who have restructured their mortgages. I am concerned that the legislation would mean that those companies are not regulated, although I accept that it regulates the owner. I am also concerned that it takes away the right to take a case to the ombudsman against that firm and provides the right to the owner. Just as I had a concern about the owner not being regulated and the firm being regulated-----