Mr. Raymond Byrne:

The commission published a report on this in 2005. We are very pleased to see that a Private Members' Bill has proposed that the report be implemented. I understand this Bill has passed Second Stage. The commission certainly recommended that there ought to be a version of the collective or class action put in place. This is why we did not deal with it in this current report. In its 2005 report the commission certainly recommended that this could be used. To complement that, one would look at the kind of approach that was taken in the tracker mortgage instance where, in effect, one had the regulator imposing results for a very large group of people. That might very well have been done through a class action. I do not want to denigrate in any way a class action but these are very complex pieces of litigation to put together. I would not say that class actions are not part of that overall measure but it was dealt with by the commission in a separate report. It is a matter for the Oireachtas to decide whether or not to implement that. I am conscious there is a Private Members' Bill proposing that. Ireland is one of the few countries in Europe that does not have that kind of collective redress mechanism. It can complement the kind of redress that has been achieved for a very large group of people in the tracker mortgage examination.