Ms MaryRose McGovern:

Everybody is agreed that holding for minutes on end is very frustrating for customers. The Senator will, no doubt, have seen recently published Central Bank of Ireland research where the abandonment rate on some lines was greater than 50%. One can well understand the frustration of a person. No matter how patient one is, to have to hold on for more than ten minutes is frustrating, let alone when it goes over half an hour.

I was conscious of that research when I was looking at the statistics in terms of complaints to this office. Customer service was identified as an issue in 23% of complaints. That seems to bear out that research. I was pleased to see the Central Bank has indicated it would have certain expectations from financial service providers in terms of customer support access.

Having said that, many customers are quite happy to engage online, whether it is through a chat forum or by way of email. However, the demographic that wants to pick up the phone and talk to a human being should be able to receive a service within a reasonable period of time. I am not in disagreement with the Senator.

In terms of our own engagement with the Central Bank of Ireland, we have a very good working relationship. I was conscious that the Governor, Mr. Makhlouf, was speaking yesterday at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach. He indicated that one of the Central Bank's priorities for its work plan this year was the review of the consumer protection code. It is reaching a stage where it will go out for further comments and consultation from stakeholders.

Happily, we have been on notice of the work being undertaken for quite a period. I wrote to the Cental Bank in 2020 and again in 2021 to identify some issues of which we took the view that it would be useful to take account in the work being undertaken on the review of the consumer protection code. I can speak a little bit about those if the Senator would like me to.