Joe O'Reilly welcomes ombudsman reforms, warns on debanking

Yes, my colleague will be called pretty immediately. I concur with the latter remarks of Senator McDougall and say it must be almost a respite for the Minister to get into this House for a while. I want at the outset to welcome the Minister. Personally, not only has the Minister a family in my area who are particularly good friends of mine, but I served with him on the Council of Europe where he served with great distinction and made a big impact for a number of years. So for that reason it is a particular personal pleasure to welcome you to the House and also indeed as my colleague has done earlier to welcome the legislation. As has been stated by yourself Minister at the outset, the financial services and pensions ombudsman or ombudsperson to be politically correct, that office is very widely used in the region of over 6,000 complaints with 5,000 resolutions in a 12-month period of 2023. It is a widely used office, it is an important office and it is an important bulwark for the public there and a reassurance for people that it is there. And it is important that we amend the legislation to take it into a good modern and a more holistic space and to deal with more issues and that we are doing here and I think that is important. The amendments listed by the Minister and outlined that are in the legislation are important. Obviously, the introduction of cross-examination is important and indeed as Senator McDougall correctly says, the criminalising of deliberate fraudulent submissions under oath here is important also for the efficacy of the entire exercise and the entire process and for getting good outcomes. So the cross-examination dimension is an important amendment. The decision as to whether an oral hearing take place is an important one and in some instances that will be appropriate. But equally so, section 17 stating that mediation will be in private is important and is a very important for a lot of consumers, a lot of individuals would not be happy to go into a public space and would not want to think they were in a mediation process that had any public dimension and that it is voluntary to enter into it. And it is possible within that space, to use a cliched modern term, in that space you can design and agree a confidential solution to a problem and I think that is important as well. That that can be done there and that there can be a mutuality there and an agreement and that is ultimately what it is all about. It is to be a watchdog but it is also to be solution focused. These are amendments to the 2017 principle act and that is important. The definition of a financial service provider is being widened and will include institutions that have left the jurisdiction and that all mortgage holders are protected and that is important. I want to make a number of general observations now Minister that I would like you to bear in mind and maybe speak to at the end if you wouldn't mind some of them anyway. There is a level to which some of them are not totally germane to this legislation but it is second stage and they are in a sense connected in many respects they are very relevant to the entire exercise of today. The first one is and this is something that maybe because of where you represent Minister you might relate to a little but people find this very strange in an urban environment and in a cosmopolitan setting like this but a lot of people have a difficulty now with the entire move to contactless payment. A lot of older people and not necessarily all older people, people have a difficulty with everything being cash. For example up at Kilmainham jail there are beautiful gardens there a lovely public space at Kilmainham and the car parking, not inappropriately I mean I understand why that might happen, it has gone to a private provider, but you can only access the car parking with contactless payments. A lot of the car parks around Dublin you can only access by contact payment. There was a dispute around various going into matches etc and that has been resolved but the point I am really making is that not for everyone is contact payment appropriate, not for everyone and we should while the institutions Minister and the financial institutions will lobby you intensely to make for contact payment it reduces a whole lot of difficulty for them and not only just security issues but also the staffing issues etc. But while that may be so I think Minister as a representative as ultimately the people's person in there I would appeal to you to ensure that we don't lose that while cash may not be king anymore that we don't lose the use of cash for those who wish and who have a difficulty with anything else and that might seem simple and almost absurd to some people. I could bring you to meet people for whom this is a real issue you know and for that reason I could have you come and meet them I invite you to come and I'll spend a Friday taking you around people for who this is a day-to-day issue. Now another issue that's a difficulty for some people now for a very different cohort of people of course is that this thing of debanking and I know it's a minority thing but there are a number of people who are having banking services removed from them on fairly arbitrary considerations it could be that they have extreme politics of one type or another it could be that they're allegedly had difficulties in the in the past or whatever but whatever it is there are people who who are being refused financial services on arbitrary grounds and they're all the term for this I gather the posh term for this is debanking but whatever it is the reality is whatever whatever you might describe it as or use terminology it's a horrible reality for the victims so I'd like to think that we might do something about that too and make that a much more transparent process and that there'd be reasoning given and notice given and a whole justification for it. Now this is a really a big area minister it's the whole area of the finance the financial financing of vulnerable people people who have a bad credit history etc and they're prey to various problems that could be very pernicious with terrible small print and I would like you as minister and I have great confidence in you and I that's not acting the fool I really mean that because I've walked alongside you I know how good you are at doing stuff so I would like you to look at this and look at this area of vulnerable people and products that are tapered to them and where they can be victims and where they can be exploited by this and the and this can happen on the internet now another thing related to this is internet scammers are using vulnerable people who are applying for loans if you they put in the words cheap finance or they put in the word special whatever and scammers are coming on to them and saying well if you give us your details we are processing your own we have a small fee it'll be only a few euros and they get their details and they deny the per individual of whatever few bob they already had so that's another area now I know this and I did second stage and I did address the legislation earlier and I know it's not all specific to the legislation but they are real issues for real people and I we don't have the opportunity that often of raising all in all I think that the legislation is good I think what anything that modernizes anything that has strengthens anything that improves the process of the ombudsman or ombudsperson or whatever in finance is important and also I'd like to see the minister explain maybe that where the credit ombudsperson kicks in where the overlap of the duties are that's a little confusing and you might talk to that a little if you don't mind minister and if I could finish by saying I agree with senator mcdougall and he has such professional competence here and experience when he says that we shouldn't have delays from these tribunals and that I'd ask the minister to to maybe see if timings are good and speedy solutions and he is right about the ptsb or rather the rtb I've been trying to process a case for somebody myself recently and it seems to be very long and the requirements of a person who's trying to put in the property to the rtb who's trying to be good and do the right thing the level of requirements from them you think they were seeking an international passport do you know it's it's quite comprehensive if somebody's willing to register their property I would have thought they should be welcomed with open arms and that it should be hallelujah here's somebody trying to comply not put a whole set of obstacles in front of them and delays thank you so much