Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

If that is clear, there is no issue in that respect.

I have another point on the other amendment. As I will probably not get in to speak on it again, I will make that point now. It relates to the three complaints rule. I agree with the Minister's position in terms of proportionality and point that if there is a bad smell about something in an area, one would not want to alarm everybody in the village. All of this is left in the trust of the Financial Regulator. Sometimes there may be a bad smell about something in a village that the rest of those living in the village should not be informed about it, but sometimes the smell is very damaging to the individual because on examining its nature the individual realises that the problem could be systemic. Even though the individual might have identified only one matter that had a bad smell about it, the ombudsman would have to intervene, investigate the matter and examine how it had happened and if in his or her view it was a matter about which the rest of the village should be alerted. That is the whole point of this. Under this section, the Ombudsman is being curtailed in identifying a major issue because two blocks are being put in his or her way. The first block is that three complaints of the same nature must be made and the second is that they must be made within a 12 month calendar period.

There are potential circumstances - I hope they will never arise - where the identification and upholding of a complaint, or two, by the Ombudsman are of a nature and size to cause significant alarm and the ombudsman will have to judge whether it is in the public interest that the matter be brought to the attention of the wider public. In this respect, I again cite the example of tracker and variable rate mortgages. I cited a case to the Minister for Finance on Committee Stage of talking to a person late at night about their difficulty in holding on to the family home where the bank had issued a letter demanding that they surrender it. I looked at the documentation and told the person that they were supposed to have a tracker mortgage, but they were on a variable rate mortgage. If people knew that was happening in that institution, which I will not name, they would take their documents out of the drawer and examine the paperwork. If the subject of the complaint is of a scale that the financial services ombudsman believes it is in public interest to bring it to the attention of the wider public, I genuinely believe we should not curtail his or her view that it is in the public interest, otherwise it is wrong. If a complaint has been upheld after the ombudsman has examined it and if the view has been formed in his or her office that it is in the public interest to inform other consumers about the complaint - this issue is about the protection of consumers at the end of the day - why put two blocks in the way of the ombudsman? In terms of the amendment, I intend to remove one of these blocks, the three complaints rule. In effect, it means that if a complaint is made to the ombudsman and that there was only complaint about one institution in the previous financial year, the ombudsman probably will not issue a report because he or she has to make a judgment that it is in the public interest.

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