Mr. Ger Deering:

In terms of dealing with complaints from providers that are about to leave or leaving, once the conduct happened when that provider was regulated in this jurisdiction, we will continue to deal with that complaint.

We have dealt with this scenario before where providers have left. Even some of the tracker mortgage complaints we are dealing with relate to providers that were in the market previously but which were regulated at the time the conduct complained of happened. We do not see that as being a problem. We believe we will be able to deal with those complaints.

Brexit is a very complex issue for us in several ways. The Deputy is correct, new providers have come in and been regulated here but he will recall that I mentioned FIN-NET, the network of European financial service ombudsmen. We still communicate with the Financial Ombudsman Service, FOS, in the UK, but it is not under the umbrella of EU regulations, obviously. There are situations, as I mentioned, where a contract might be governed by a different law. In that instance, we would require the provider and the complainant to agree to have their complaint dealt with by this office under Irish law. We cannot say it is definitely Brexit-related but more recently a financial service provider which, in the past would have agreed to have that complaint dealt with under Irish law, refused to do so and that created a problem. I am not sure if it is Brexit-related but it certainly creates a problem for their customers who then were unable to have their complaint dealt with by this office.