Mr. William Prasifka:

Regarding the levy, I acknowledge the public perception issue that might arise from the fact that we are effectively funded by the industry. The difficulty is that the choices are rather stark in this regard. Would it be better to have the office funded directly by the taxpayer? I have said that the levy is effectively paid for by the industry, but it is really paid for by customers as well. It is a cost of doing business. Best international practice in this area is for bodies like ours to be paid for by the industry, that is, by the people who are using the financial services products that are being regulated. However, as I said, there is the danger that people will deem us to be not independent, which is why we must have proper structures of governance in place. It is very important that the ombudsman is seen to be clearly independent.

Regarding our ability to collect the levy, the only issue we have in this regard is with very small providers. Our remit covers everything from the largest financial institutions, banks and insurance companies down to two-person operations providing intermediary or broker services. During the contraction of recent years, many of those smaller providers went out of business. There is no real issue in terms of collecting the levy from 98% plus of the bodies we regulate. We are dealing with regulated financial service providers - companies which must have the licence - and that puts them into a separate category.

The Senator asked whether we experience any element of non-co-operation when it comes to implementing our findings. As I said, our findings are legally binding and are generally implemented. The only exception we have found is in circumstances where a company goes out of business and is in liquidation or receivership. In such cases we would be in contact with the receiver. The Senator is correct that there is no reference to this issue in our annual report. That is because it is not really an issue for us. It is only an issue where parties go out of business, but at that point nobody can collect a judgment against them.