Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I was going to come to that later but maybe I will deal with it now. I attended workshops in Tullamore on retail banking last week where I mentioned that switching has to become simple. It is a lot simpler in the energy market. Switching bank must be something people can do easily. Otherwise, the banks will be able to take advantage of the fact that people do not switch and therefore do not get the best available product. The process we are discussing tells us that switching is far from straightforward. For people who are digitally active it is relatively straightforward but for others it is more challenging. It is completely different in the energy sector. Ms Sayers referred to the supplier of last resort. Electric Ireland benefited from this in February when it took on an extra 1,500 customers from Bright Energy which withdrew from the market. We have a company withdrawing from the market in the energy sector and banks withdrawing from the market in the banking sector but the difference between the two could not be starker. In the former case, the customers did not have to do anything. They were automatically transferred to Electric Ireland with notification that if they wanted to move to another company, they could do so but that they had a home in Electric Ireland, they would be fine and did not have to worry unless they wanted to shop around for a better option.

Was any of that discussed in the forums with BPFI? We have had a year-long lead-in. When the banks needed to be rescued, they had no problem marching up to Government Buildings at all hours of the morning looking for emergency legislation. In this day and age, I do not understand why we are looking at thousands of forms going to Electric Ireland. These forms that are going to Electric Ireland are also going to multiple other direct debit originators. We are possibly talking about millions of forms to be filled in by hand, processed and posted back. It is just crazy stuff. It seems deliberately designed to make the process more complex than it needs to be so that people do not readily switch. A proper switching code that is seamless would actually benefit customers over the banks because it would make it easy for people to shop around.

I ask Ms Sayers to explain the difference in the situation for a Bright Energy customer as compared with an Ulster Bank customer.