Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail)

I commend Senator Rónán Mullen for preparing and bringing the Bill before the House. It is an interesting debate and I thank the Minister for his considered and thought provoking response. He has made a fair point in noting the task he faces in reducing the regulatory burden on business, especially the small and medium-sized enterprise sector. In this instance, it is necessary to balance the rights of the customer with the need to ensure the regulatory burden on business is not excessive. On balance and having examined the Bill, the Fianna Fáil Party errs on the side of the rights of the consumer and supports the Bill.

Perhaps Senator Rónán Mullen might refine section 4 which would empower the Minister to appoint authorised officers and an inspectorate. Having listened to the Minister's comments on the section, I am unsure as to whether it is the correct approach. Notwithstanding this, it is important to have in legislation a statutory obligation, albeit one that does not place an onerous burden of responsibility on the Department. In the case of many other statutory codes, it has not been necessary to appoint an inspectorate or additional officers for monitoring purposes.

Senators Rónán Mullen and Sean D. Barrett have noted that most transactions are system driven and impersonal. It is difficult to regularly track one's bank balance because increasingly it is provided online and no longer sent to consumers in paper format. Most banks now charge a fee to send retrospective statements. It should, therefore, be within the gift of businesses to avail of regulations requiring the repayment of overpayments. Without wishing to stretch out this matter, we should bear in mind the number of times customers of businesses in the financial services sector have been found to be due refunds. The most recent case involved Allied Irish Banks which had to repay millions of euro to customers, including many who held accounts with other banks but were charged for using AIB's automatic teller machines, ATMs. It was only on foot of an investigation by the Financial Regulator and the Central Bank that the repayments averaging some €500 were made. The AIB case did not specifically involve overpayments as it related to overcharging for which refunds were due. If the legislation were to be implemented, many businesses, including larger businesses, would focus much more on ensuring their charging structures were correct and tighten procedures for collecting charges. As a result, cases such as that involving Allied Irish Banks would occur less often.

I accept it is difficult to quantify the extent of the problem, although I note the figures provided by Senator Rónán Mullen for the United States. The Minister has indicated his belief overpayment is not a major problem in this country. It would be worthwhile to ascertain the number of such cases, perhaps with the assistance of the Government.

I concur with the statement in the explanatory memorandum that the Bill would complement the successful dormant accounts legislation. It would also focus minds in business. I am cognisant, however, of the need to avoid imposing an onerous additional regulatory burden on the business sector. Perhaps the Government might allow the Bill to complete Second Stage in order that amendments could be made on Committee Stage. With the agreement of Senator Mullen, I would certainly look at areas like section 4 and perhaps even section 3 to take some of the duties away from the Department and to bring it in more as a regulatory code that would not require much more additional resources but would simply set down in law that people must return any overpayments within a given period.

This Bill is very worthwhile and if it was allowed to pass Second Stage and those relevant amendments were added to take into account some of the very valid concerns mentioned by the Minister in his speech, I think we could enact a good Bill which would protect the hard-pressed consumer while not putting an onerous burden on the business sector. While we will be supporting the Bill, I hope some mechanism could be worked out whereby it would could pass Second Stage to allow amendments to be made and in order that we can frame important legislation that would not cause the Department or the business community any great difficulty but would protect the consumer.