Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

With respect, the remarks the Minister of State read out are a restatement of the position the FSPO has put into correspondence with me over the years, and with others as well. Deputy Doherty is familiar with these kinds of cases. He has worked on them too. I imagine many other Members of the House have as well. The Deputy is right that we are legislators. We make the law and it is up to the agencies of the State to enforce that law. If the political will is there, it is surely not beyond our ability to develop an innovative solution that is fair to everyone and that can address these very real everyday human problems that are becoming more apparent by the day.

I spoke last year to the Business Post, which started to express an interest in these cases. It did a desktop assessment of the kinds of regimes in place in similar common law jurisdictions where, for example, GDPR laws apply. They referred to the UK financial services ombudsman which said, “it had similar problems, but crucially, it was able to help in some instances”. It did not go through in detail what those instances were, but clearly the legal system with which we have most in common, the UK common law system, managed to find a way around this to accommodate this unfortunate everyday reality.

Deputy Doherty's amendment is well crafted and it gives some latitude to the FSPO to make a determination on whether a complaint is appropriate or whether it can accept that complaint. An agency and organisation, operating under the laws we develop in this House and pass as a sovereign Parliament, should be able to interpret those laws and we should give it the latitude it needs to be able to operate in the real world and create some kind of practical framework to take these complaints and try to resolve them. The amendment is not overly explicit as to how that will be done. It is drafted broadly enough to allow the FSPO to look at all of the facts and merits of each individual case and make a determination as to whether it can take on the case while balancing everyone's interests. I find it extraordinary that there is an overly legalistic interpretation of these kinds of things. We deal all the time in this House with much more complex problems and we manage to find solutions. I reiterate that if the political will is there to deal with this, it should not be beyond us to find a resolution to this very real problem.

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