John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The complaints procedures in banks are dysfunctional. A lady in her later years found out that her signature was on a guarantee in the bank. It is her signature and her late husband's signature but it is obvious that she was never in the bank, she never signed the document in a bank and she does not know the people who are on it with her from the bank. Therefore, she made a complaint and got no answer. I then submitted the complaint and it was referred to the complaints department of the bank. Maybe every two months or quarter, I get a letter saying that it is desperately making every effort to deal with the query, that it is sorry for the delay and if I wish to go further with it, I can contact the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman. I must have a dozen of those letters arising from one single complaint. The elderly woman is pushing on, finding it difficult to deal with the big issue in her life and wishing to get back the approximately €70,000 the bank took from her account. That is all the bank will say. The last time I spoke to the bank in question, it told me that it would be solved within two weeks. That must have been months ago. I tell the Governor that because of this level of dysfunctionality in the process of the bank, whereby they cannot deal with something like this quickly, means for me that it is just not acceptable.