Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman is an independent, impartial, fair and free service that helps resolve complaints from consumers, including small businesses, against financial service providers and pension providers. I do not think anyone would argue against such a body. We need to give the powers to such a body to be able to deliver for regular people.

While we accept that there have been some positive moves in this regard - Deputy Doherty spoke about how the customers of Ulster Bank and KBC, which have left this jurisdiction, now have this facility to resolve their issues – Deputy Martin Kenny set out the issues facing people who have unfortunately had their mortgages bought by vulture funds. Each of us has dealt with vulture funds and engaged with people who were at their wits’ end following interactions with them. We know that there are issues around how those bodies have been dealing with people since before 2019. Those issues need to be addressed.

We have all heard the stories in the public domain about the scandalous lengths of time people have spent trying to use the FSPO. Justice needs to be swift, and we could be speaking about people in very constrained financial straits. It is good that we will increase this facility’s remit. I would like to think that there will be enough interaction between the Government and Opposition to ensure that we catch all of the people who have fallen between the stools. Even those who can avail of the service are, at times, experiencing waiting times of two or three years. Some of that period is lost because of the time spent assigning to an adjudicator. We need to resolve these issues. We will have an opportunity on Committee Stage to do this, and I would like to think we will.

While I have the Minister, I might raise an issue regarding the tech sector. We have had news across County Louth. Some of it has been good, and some of it not so good. The Minister and the Minister for enterprise need to examine the tech sector and what may be coming down the line. The good news has to do with Pentagon Technologies in Dundalk and its new precision parts cleaning facility, with 100 jobs to be created over the next couple of years. That is welcome. We know of the issues affecting the semiconductor industry, but it is booming, which is also welcome.

Not for the first time, I will raise the issue of PayPal. We know that a process is ongoing. I have spoken to the Minister for enterprise about it. The 205 jobs affected will be split between a Dublin facility and what was formerly the Dundalk facility. The total number of jobs is 1,800, which is a considerable number. I would like there to be some governmental interaction on this. The word coming out of the 30-day consultation process is that those who got redundancies last year may have been offered a better package than what is being offered now. It might only be statutory redundancy plus two whereas the previous package was statutory plus six. I would like to think that conversations will be had where necessary. All Louth Oireachtas Members will have got word today about Glen Dimplex. There has been investment and reorientation, but there are 230 jobs or thereabouts in Dunleer and there could be approximately 70 job changes. I would like to think that as few of those as possible will be job losses. In fairness, this relates to-----

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