Mr. Ger Deering:

To be clear, we ourselves are of the view that they should be put on hold. We think it is to the benefit of the complainant. The reason for that is a significant amount of extra information may become available to us as part of the examination. We will require of the provider whatever information is given to the Central Bank on foot of the examination. It will have to provide us with that same information, which will enhance our investigation role into it. The other reason is that with the Financial Services Ombudsman, as indeed with any body such as ours, there is only one bite of the cherry. If people got an adjudication from us now, they could not have the same complaint dealt with later. From our experience, there is no guarantee that even if people get something from the redress, they will get the correct redress. Someone might get a tracker back but it might be at an interest rate that is not the correct one or it might not come back from the time that it ought to have. What we are trying to do is preserve complainants' ability and rights in this regard. It is not often or always appreciated that when they have gone through the full examination process and used the appeal system of the banks themselves, we can still deal with that complaint and will deal with that complaint.