Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 59, between lines 12 and 13, to insert the following:“(d) the measures undertaken by the financial service provider in response to complaints made under this section.”.

I wish to discuss the amendment briefly. I do not wish to detain the Minister of State.

The amendment proposes that the ombudsman report include information about complaints. We seek to add what is stated in the amendment. The rest is covered, such as the name of the regulated financial provider, including any trading name, the identity of any group of which the regulated financial services provider is a member and the number of complaints signed to be substantiated or partially substantiated in respect of the regulated financial services provider in the preceding financial year.

There was a complaint yesterday about a situation in which a bank decided not to charge a person €12 to cash a €50 cheque. These organisations have a tradition of cocking a snook at the Government, the Central Bank and the rest of us, and are still talking to us through their tapes on a daily basis. We need to know what happened and whether the abuses were addressed and corrected. This is against the background of the work of Estelle Feldman, whom the Minister of State mentioned. She fears that organisations do not reform and whistleblowers are penalised.

There was a report on 22 April 2012 by Daniel McConnell and Tom Lyons on the whistleblowers' dire warnings which were silenced by senior finance chiefs. It quotes Robert Pye and Marie Mackle. Ms Mackle said, "I've paid the price for being an internal whistleblower. As matters stand currently, I am completely ostracised and my work is ignored." If people are going to go out on a limb we have to know whether anybody listened when they drew to our attention what happened and whether the reforms that took place can be included in a report. This is a good place in the Bill to introduce that.

As the Minister of State said, we are trying to change a corporate culture. I appreciate what he said but many in the House would see it has not changed. Banking in Ireland used to be a utility service. People lodged savings which were looked after and ready for them when they grew old. It inculcated a habit of thrift among young people. That was replaced by the managerial casino generation which wrecked banks. I am not sure whether the latter group has been fully expunged from the banking system, because it is not the picture painted in the House on a daily basis.

This section gives the Government a mechanism to ask what happened in regard to complaints.

The Financial Services Ombudsman will then be able to include that information in his or her annual report. The banks might not like this proposal, but the rest of us who are paying dearly for their actions will not tolerate a situation where they are not held fully accountable. Ensuring full accountability is the object of this proposal. Representatives of the banks have been before the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee of Public Accounts, but we are still not getting the whole story. We must use every piece of armoury at our disposal to make institutions accountable, which includes a requirement to report on how they responded to complaints made against them and the reforms they introduced when whistleblowers exposed the many abuses in the system.