Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am very disappointed with the response from the Minister of State and Department. This is a real issue. I have an example of this. Coercive control exists. These people have a right to do what everybody else can, which is to make a complaint to the financial services ombudsman about the conduct of financial institutions. The Minister of State is telling me he will not do anything about the legislation that prevents them doing so where the person exercising coercive control over them does not allow it. That is nonsense and should not happen. Surely to God there is enough wisdom in this room to deal with this issue. If it cannot be fixed for contracts in the past, surely we can legislate to ensure contracts in the future allow for all joint accounts to have it specified that if a party to the agreement brings it to the FSPO without consent, it will be heard by the FSPO. There are ways around this.

That response is a typical response outlining why not to do something. The Minister of State has to put himself in the shoes of the, mostly, women in this situation. Their partner took a joint mortgage with them and is not allowing them to get the justice they deserve. They do that, in some cases, out of spite and as a way to harm the individual. That is what this is about. If there is a way for us to resolve that, which I believe there is, it should be done. I understand the limitations of the FSPO but if the Minister of State is saying the limitations are consent and GDPR, can they not be provided at the point of entering into a contract?

I have a case where there were eight signatories to a contract, six of them children. Some of them were not even in the country at the time. They were in Australia. They cannot take the case to the FSPO because the individual who benefited from this and from the wrongdoings of the financial institutions, as is alleged, will not play ball with the partner and children. That is nonsense. I cannot accept that. Let us imagine somebody coming to my constituency clinic who is the victim of domestic violence. Through other engagements, we find out she has been wronged by a financial institution but she cannot seek justice because the person who perpetrated that violence is attacking her once again through legislation that we can fix. Surely they have the right to do it.

The Minister of State is probably not in a position because Cabinet has decided all this stuff but we have to be able to fix this. This is simple to fix if we want to do it. We make the law. The Minister of State read out that these are the rules by which the FSPO is set up. We know the FSPO has to play by the rules but we make the rules. Sinn Féin in this amendment is trying to change the rules so this type of situation would not be allowed and the FSPO would have discretion to hear a case from one party to a joint agreement where it felt it was in the interests of protecting the rights of that party. We can put in protections and rights for people to do this, that and the other but the basic right to take a case and seek redress should be afforded not just to some citizens but to all citizens.

I strongly urge the Minister of State to rethink this. This is absolutely wrong. I know some individuals who have been in this circumstance. It is just not right.

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