Mr. Ger Deering:

I am sure the Deputy will appreciate that I will not comment on the particular instance he outlined. However, we have looked at complaints of this nature. The outcomes can vary. It is very often within the commercial discretion of the provider. These are credit unions, so they are member organisations, and where the members decide that they are going in a particular direction, what we look at is the level of communication and how people were told. For example, this can sometimes happen when an amalgamation takes place of smaller credits unions. That has happened a lot. It may be that a member might have had an option to go somewhere else that still provides the service had he or she known in time what was happening but he or she could have been incorporated into another credit union without knowing. I can only give a general answer but if the complaint relates to the conduct of a financial service provider, we can accept the complaint. If the issue turns out to be within the commercial discretion of the provider itself, we may not be able to uphold the complaint but once it relates to a financial service provider regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland, it falls within our remit.