Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his reply, although unfortunately it is, verbatim, the reply to a parliamentary question I submitted recently. I do not blame the Minister of State for that because it is what he was provided with by the Department of Finance.

The essential issue is that of the 340,000 products sold since July 2007, the evidence is that an unknown quantum were mis-sold. There is an ongoing formal investigation and the firms involved are dealing with the products that were sold in July 2007. We are told there is an independent third party overseeing the process. However, the problem is that, under existing legislation, if people do not get the recourse they require through the Central Bank investigation, the six-year rule will exclude many of them from applying to the Financial Services Ombudsman. The Minister has stated he is open to introducing the principle of discoverability, such as exists in the United Kingdom. That means it is only from the date a person learns that a product was mis-sold that the clock starts ticking. It is important that the Government implement that reform as quickly as possible.

This issue has been highlighted on RTE's consumer programme and The Sunday Times has been running an ongoing campaign on it. It is a genuine issue and at its heart there are people who, when hard times hit them, when their businesses folded or they became ill and were no longer able to work, thought to themselves, "Well, I'm fine, because I've been paying into a payment protection policy. I'll just ring them up and they'll ensure I continue to have a reasonable standard of living." However, such people were then told by the companies concerned that even though they had been paying into the fund for a number of years they were not actually eligible for or entitled to any payment. In basic terms, that is the issue. These people deserve justice and deserve to be compensated. Small changes would ensure most of them can be accommodated and I ask the Minister of State to bring those points to the Minister for Finance.

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