Results 10,661-10,680 of 36,188 for speaker:Pearse Doherty

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Insurance Issues: Minister of State at the Department of Finance (16 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: I welcome the Central Bank's reports, which confirm everything I have said, but the organisation has a role in consumer protection and should have been doing this itself. The Central Bank should not have had to be told by a Member of the Oireachtas to carry out this work. It is way behind the curve on this matter. These insurance companies have been practicing dual pricing for ages. What...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Insurance Issues: Minister of State at the Department of Finance (16 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: I know that. There are 2.5 million customers with policies of this nature who are renewing and are being fleeced. It is our job to protect them. I will make a final comment on this because other members want to come in. I am publishing legislation. We have worked for a number of months on this and have worked with the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers on good legislation that will...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Insurance Issues: Minister of State at the Department of Finance (16 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: No, it is for motor and home insurance. It will seek to ban dual pricing and give the Central Bank the powers to address issues, for example, to finesse the policy. It will ensure that a renewal customer has to be treated in the same way as if that renewal customer was a new customer with the same firm. As the Central Bank has found, and as the FCA and others have found, if a person is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Insurance Issues: Minister of State at the Department of Finance (16 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: I am aware that the Minister of State is relatively new to the position. I encourage him to read the FCA's interim and final reports. I also encourage him to read the cost-benefit analysis that suggests up to €12 billion benefit from the industry to consumers, and also suggests how banning dual pricing would increase competition. It is interesting when one tracks what the FCA is...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Nursing Education (15 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: 70. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if funding will be made available to fund a bursary scheme for student nurses who have worked during the pandemic. [43309/20]

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues in Ireland: Central Bank (15 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: I welcome the witnesses. The tracker mortgage examination has taken up a large part of this committee's work in previous years. Unfortunately, we have not concluded with it. These are statements I would have made to the Central Bank when it issued its final report in July 2019. I know the Chairman was also very vocal in saying that there were outstanding cases. When the Central Bank...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues in Ireland: Central Bank (15 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: What would have happened to those 5,900 people if that single individual had not taken a case to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues in Ireland: Central Bank (15 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: They received €1,650.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues in Ireland: Central Bank (15 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: I understand all that. What would have happened if that single individual had not taken a case to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues in Ireland: Central Bank (15 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: A total of 5,899 people who were affected did not take a case to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman. If that individual had not taken the case, they would not have got up to €30,000 in compensation because the Central Bank had finished its supervisory role when it completed its examination into that part. Is Mr. Sibley suggesting to me that when the Central Bank...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues in Ireland: Central Bank (15 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: What is Mr. Sibley saying? I want to focus on this. I appreciate the way the examination was set up. People have the right to raise the matter with the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman and the right to seek redress in the courts but the Central Bank has a consumer protection role.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues in Ireland: Central Bank (15 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: With all that goes on in banks and insurance, I understand it is very difficult for the Central Bank to spot what is happening and usually something is spotted after the fact or on foot of a consumer's complaint. However, in this case, we are six or seven years into a major scandal where money was wrongly taken from the accounts of 40,000 people with respect to overcharging. People lost...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues in Ireland: Central Bank (15 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: The Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman is not before me and I am not asking that office how it dealt with its consumer protection role. Witnesses from the Central Bank are before us. The bank has a statutory obligation in terms of consumer protection. The witnesses were fully aware through the tracker mortgage examination that banks had been fleecing their customers. Members of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues in Ireland: Central Bank (15 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: Let me acknowledge that point. The bank included them in the examination but when it examined them, it did not come to the conclusion they should have been awarded a tracker mortgage. Is that correct? That is what AIB was also arguing, including right through its appeals process. That was then overturned by the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman. That is the core of the issue. ...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues in Ireland: Central Bank (15 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: I am quite alarmed by what I hear from the Central Bank. Ms McEvoy spoke of an informed view and I am sure it was, but does she acknowledge it was the wrong view and that the bank came up with the wrong conclusion? She referred to different criteria the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman can take into account but at the core of this was the question of whether these individuals...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues in Ireland: Central Bank (15 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: What about the 1,100 customers? How did the bank miss those? Three months later, in July, AIB announced its subsidiaries, EBS and Haven, also took money. At the core of this is overcharging and entitlement to a tracker mortgage. Those subsidiaries deducted money from people's bank accounts that they had no right to do because these individuals had a right to a tracker mortgage. Some...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues in Ireland: Central Bank (15 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: I will move on from that issue. I ask the Central Bank to update its final report. We know there are at least another 7,000 victims and more money has been paid out. I ask the witnesses to update the bank's report. I wish to ask about the accountability regime. Mr. Sibley has mentioned this in his opening statement for the past three years and it is three years since the bank has...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues in Ireland: Central Bank (15 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: I appreciate that. Finally, I wish to ask about a case with which Mr. Sibley may be familiar. A letter related to it was shared on social media platforms. It involves a loan that was sold by Ulster Bank to the vulture fund, Promontoria Scariff. It was a loan about which there was engagement with Ulster Bank until June last year. There was an expectation of an arrangement being entered...

Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2020 [Seanad]: Committee and Remaining Stages (10 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: On section 11, I want to talk about consecutive terms of appointment to the IFAC. This should not be happening. The members of the council have done an excellent job, including the reports they give to the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach, of which I am a member. We differ on some issues and agree with others; that is the nature of it. The council...

Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2020 [Seanad]: Committee and Remaining Stages (10 Dec 2020)

Pearse Doherty: Okay.