Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is a very welcome amendment and one I considered tabling but I did not manage to do so. I have dealt with cases over the years and I have engaged with the FSPO on behalf of constituents in situations where they were joint holders of a mortgage, the relationship had broken down and there was evidence of fraud, for the want of a better description, perpetrated by one of the people who held the account, which was accepted by the bank. The relationship had broken down and the person on the other side of that relationship wanted to make a complaint to the ombudsman about a matter related to that account and the ombudsman could not accept that because the complainant could not obtain the consent of the other signatory.

That is a very real-life human set of circumstances that confronts far too many people and, arguably, is a form of economic and financial abuse that the FSPO is not in a position to investigate. It perpetrates another injustice against someone who has already experienced a number of injustices in his or her life.

I have been in correspondence with the FSPO on this particular case and I believe it illustrates a broader problem. The ombudsman made it very clear that there are very obvious difficulties in framing a legislative amendment that might be able to accommodate everybody’s rights. I understand that. It seems that the ombudsman’s equivalent in the UK – the regulator there – has managed to steer a middle course on this and is acknowledging the problems. They too have a form of a GDPR regime. GDPR is not necessarily the problem. Of course, it is used as the omni-excuse to cover everything by some agencies that would just prefer to not do anything at all and that is the defence. I accept, however, that when the ombudsman was corresponding with me on this issue that was not the purpose but was obliged to point out the obvious GDPR issues that would arise.

It should not be beyond us as a Legislature to try to come up with an innovative solution to accommodate somebody’s rights because it is an all too human problem. It arises all of the time. I would like to think there are people in the FSPO and similar organisations who would like to see a solution to this.

It is not immediately obvious to me what that is. Deputy Doherty's amendment is helpful in trying to get to the bottom of this and propose some kind of resolution. I am interested in the Minister of State's views. It is a very human problem. It would be useful to hear his views on how the problem might be addressed.

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