Results 25,541-25,560 of 34,777 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I move amendment No. 15:In page 6, between lines 18 and 19, to insert the following:“(c) direct that a purchaser of a credit agreement shall be subject to the provisions of this Act, except where such purchase is made by way of securitisation.”.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I move amendment No. 18:In page 6, between lines 39 and 40, to insert the following:“(c) direct that a purchaser of a credit agreement shall be subject to the provisions of this Act, except where such purchase is made by way of securitisation.”.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I move amendment No. 19:In page 6, between lines 39 and 40, to insert the following:“(3) A person who carries on the business of credit servicing exclusively for an already regulated financial service provider shall be required to be regulated under this Act.”. I am hoping this will have the same answer as previous amendments. We want to provide that a person who carries out...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: Am I right in saying one can now have a credit servicing company that does not require to be regulated? I am seeing a bit of a lacuna here, although the Minister of State will tell me there are not any. It is a bit like a company having a branch that is not separately incorporated. If a regulated owner of the loans sets up a company or engages a credit servicing company to deal with its...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: We are back to the situation with the insurance company some time ago. An entity is already regulated if it is regulated anywhere in the EU. If we are in Greece or Malta and the owner of the loan is in Greece, it is deemed to be regulated in Ireland under reciprocal regulatory agreements. If a Greek bank buys the loans and has an exclusive arrangement with a debt servicing company to...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: What about Setanta?

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I have, and with the Greek regulator and the regulators in several countries. The essence of my problem is that if any of the main Irish banks want to bundle off 10,000 of their troublesome mortgages and put them on the market, and a regulated institution in Spain, Portugal or Greece buys them, we have a reciprocal arrangement that as long as they are regulated in the EU, we accept their...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: Where will it be regulated?

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: It is because it is doing business in Ireland.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: And that is done by the Financial Regulator, not the Central Bank. We are into the differentiation between the Regulator and the Central Bank as overseeing the overall prudential strength of the bank as opposed to the regulatory aspect by the Financial Regulator.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I will press the amendment anyway.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I will reconsider it and resubmit.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I acknowledge the principle of the amendment but we are discussing the actions of an unregulated organisation. The Central Bank has enough difficulties supervising the institutions that are currently regulated. How can it possibly know what is going on in bodies that it does not regulate? If the Minister of State can assure us that a division within the Financial Regulator's office is...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I welcome that firms cannot use as a defence the claim that they were ordered to breach the regulations but we are back to my first question about the unregulated owner. If it is unregulated, it is outside the ambit of the Financial Regulator. How will the regulator know whether the unregulated entity is behaving properly? We have had a lengthy debate on providing transparency on...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: We will revisit it on Report Stage.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I move amendment No. 23:In page 7, between lines 32 and 33, to insert the following:"(c) by inserting the following after paragraph (c):"and, in relation to an unregulated service provider means a consumer who is, in relation to any aspect of his or her credit agreement,(i) a customer of credit servicing firm engaged by an unregulated service provider, or (ii) a customer of an unregulated...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: Okay.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I move amendment No. 24:In page 7, between lines 32 and 33, to insert the following:"Consumer Protection Code 7. The Consumer Protection Code shall continue to apply to all loans to which the code was previously applicable.".

Topical Issue Debate: State Examinations (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: The letter I received states that the number of applications received in 2012 was 2,495, in 2013 it was 2,572 and in 2014 it was 2,609 while the number of reader approvals was 1826, 1,678 and 1,695, respectively. There has been a very slight increase in the number of applications, of approximately 100 over the three years, but the number of approvals has dropped and the number of refusals...

Topical Issue Debate: State Examinations (27 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I raise an issue which affects approximately 1,000 students who are due to sit the leaving certificate examination in the coming week. They have special needs and applied through the Department to the State Examinations Commission for a reader to assist them in reading the examination papers in order that they will be able to answer the questions to the best of their ability. Many of them...