Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Earlier I mentioned somebody who acted in good faith, tried to stop the contravention and reported the matter up the line. Head 5, section 1(c) reads, "the senior executive function performed by the person was at that time responsible for the management or oversight of the regulated financial service provider's activities in relation to which the contravention" was happening, and that is my concern. It is crucial that more senior people are captured in terms of their responsibility in terms of management or oversight on those so that no junior people are caught out. I am not satisfied that is fully got in subsection (c) but perhaps the Central Bank regulations can deal with that.

I would like the witnesses' views on this. The tracker mortgage scandal was one of the biggest scandals. We can call it theft as €1 billion has had to be paid back into the accounts of more than 40,000 people. Family homes and buy-to-lets were taken off people, and we know the misery that has caused. Do the witnesses believe, had we had this legislation five or ten years ago, the Central Bank would have been able to hold individuals to account and fine them as a result of their actions? I ask because that is the slat tomhais or barometer we want to use when assessing whether this legislation will work in the future.

My last point is about holding people to account and, it is hoped, dissuading practices that went on in the past, but we need to find out about these practices. If it had not been for the handful of individuals taking their case to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman, we may never have heard about the tracker mortgage scandal in the first place. Is it not now appropriate to introduce a proper whistleblowing regime in the financial services industry? It is too small of a club and there is too much fear in terms of moving up the ladder and so on. That has been seen in terms of what happened in America where, following a scandal there, legislation was introduced that allowed for a financial benefit for those who blew the whistle on what was happening within the sectors. Is that something the Central Bank would support? Are there other areas the Central Bank would like to see in this legislation? For example, I am conscious that payment gateways, such as Revolut and Stripe, are not included. These are new platforms that allow people, using their phones, to invest thousands of euro in cryptocurrency, yet none of that comes under the scope of this legislation.