Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is the exception to the rule.

Perhaps we will have an opportunity at some other stage to talk about the resources and workload of the office and especially the substantial number of tracker mortgage cases it is still dealing with. As regards the processes, the witnesses will be familiar with their office's counterpart in Britain, the Financial Ombudsman Service, which has an independent assessor, who is independent of the ombudsman and can consider the standard of services or the practical handling of any case that is before the Financial Ombudsman Service. The assessor can investigate and review such complaints and make determinations, including requiring the Financial Ombudsman Service to apologise or to pay compensation for damage, distress or inconvenience as a result of poor service if the independent assessor decides the Financial Ombudsman Service has not met the requisite standards. We do not have that here. I am not raising this because of any particular case. Do the witnesses think it would be an important additional support? I mentioned the tracker mortgage cases. The Office of the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman has done stellar work on that issue recently. It has not only ensured that the complaints that have come before it found redress, but also, as it reports to the Central Bank, it triggered a response in which many hundreds of others who did not make a complaint got the same redress. In the early days, the complaints that went before the financial ombudsman were rejected. That was an issue. Do the witnesses think an independent assessor would strengthen the overall toolkit we have in ensuring there is an additional place to go?