Mr. John Farrelly:

I can understand why people would be put out by that if that is what people perceived. It is something we would definitely like to fix if we can get evidence that it is actually occurring or would occur. There is an assumed capacity provided for in the Act. One of the powers we have under the Act is to monitor, enforce and regulate that people are using the Act in good faith. I actually read that in the paper. The idea that a bank teller would somehow not believe a person had capacity and refuse them an account - I was part of a HIQA investigation where we went into the centres for people with disabilities. None of them had accounts. The staff were running the accounts and using the money. We heard similar things like that from the staff. However, when we pushed it, thousands of individuals were given bank accounts. This was before the Act.

Quite genuinely, the Act may have some interpretive and analytical flaws and academic, perceptual flaws. Most Acts do. I am more than happy to relay that question to the director and give the Deputy a formal reply. I would be very surprised if someone went to a bank and that happened with the powers we would have. If they came to us, we would absolutely go after that area to make sure they were using the law properly. The other thing is working with the banks. I know the banks have received a lot of flak but they have actually engaged with this in terms of training and bringing people up to standards in terms of the Act. It is unfortunate if what the Deputy says is the case. I would not like that to be the case. I hope we can get a meeting with the people who think that may be the case. Through all our consultation and talking to thousands of people, that never really came up until the Deputy mentioned it.