Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is an area that needs to be addressed and not only in the context of the forwarding of material to incorrect addresses. There is a much more serious issue. I use the word "domestic". The selling of mortgages is a significant issue of address in these Houses. What does it entail? It entails the selling on of all of the data that is relevant to the borrower. Regarding a borrower presenting to any financial institution, the experience heretofore would have involved a high-street engagement with the local presence of any of the banking institutions. There is a knowledge and recognition factor and while a lot of the decision-making has been centralised and taken away from the high-street representatives of the respective banking institutions, the fact remains that, regardless of the small print, the people signing up for these arrangements had no idea that their information would have been available for sale on the market to vulture funds. A number of people have reflected their great upset and disquiet at this. Let me underscore that there should be no distinction because it is an issue that needs to be substantively addressed but we should not for a moment believe that the main banking institutions are just selling on non-performing loans or under-performing loans. For whatever reason, they are selling on fully performing loans. That is a fact. Somebody enters into an arrangement with a banking institution and signs off to borrow to purchase a home or whatever might be the case and his or her loan is performing in line with the agreement with the bank throughout. This person can then find himself or herself being notified by the bank that it is selling on the loan. The person then appeals the decision and the appeal is rejected. As someone who formerly worked in a banking institution in this country, I can attest that this is the case. This is a really vexed issue. I cannot emphasise enough that selling on a loan involves selling on the individual data in tandem. It is being sold as a package. We do not even know if the information is retained in the jurisdiction. Invariably, that is not the case. Vulture funds et al. are international operators and that is not what people here understood they were getting involved with in the first instance. This is a very serious issue.

I urge the DPC to give serious consideration to addressing this. I will not put a tooth in it, but, in my opinion, there are flagrant abuses, including of the nature I have just recounted. It is inexplicable, which is all I can say in that regard.

Our guests indicated that rather than reacting to a request, the commission might initiate a statutory inquiry. How are statutory inquiries initiated? How are they carried out? Is it of the commission's own volition or is there a request process that has given rise to the 33 domestic statutory inquiries currently in train and will give rise to any in future? Can the methodology employed be clarified?