Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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70. To ask the Minister for Finance if the Central Bank will review its principles for redress and compensation under the tracker examination to reflect the fact that many consumers have employed financial advisers and that this extra cost should be reflected in their awards. [13655/18]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Central Bank’s Tracker Examination is focused on ensuring that lenders provide fair outcomes for all customers impacted by tracker related failings. As part of the Examination framework, where customer detriment has been identified, the Central Bank has clearly articulated its expectations of lenders to provide appropriate redress and compensation to impacted customers in line with its prescribed Principles for Redress. The provision of redress is intended to return impacted customers to the position that they would have been in had the relevant issue not arisen and the compensation, which is to be reasonable, must reflect the detriment involved arising from and/or associated with being on an incorrect rate. Such compensation is to reflect the specific circumstances of each impacted customer.

The Central Bank’s Principles for Redress also set out that the lender is to provide impacted customers with an additional payment to allow them to take independent legal or other professional advice regarding the redress and compensation offers made to them. This additional payment is to be commensurate with the complexity of the advice required by the impacted customer depending on the individual circumstances of the impacted customer’s case.

Another important part of the Examination Framework is the requirement for lenders to establish independent Appeals Panels, specifically to deal with customers who are not satisfied with any aspect of the redress and compensation offers that they receive from lenders. The appeals process is additional to the options of bringing a complaint to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman or initiating court proceedings. Importantly customers can also accept the redress and compensation offered and still make an appeal to the independent appeals panels. Customers’ rights to make appeals to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman and through the courts are also preserved.