Seanad Éireann · 2025-04-10
Party shown is the one held on 2025-04-10, frozen at parse time — not the speaker's party today.
The Financial Services and Pension Ombudsman is an independent, impartial, fair and free service that helps resolve complaints from consumers, including small businesses, against financial service providers and pension providers. It provides a vital service for consumers of financial services in Ireland.
It is heartening to see it through the final legislative Stages in the Seanad today, particularly given the key aim of the Bill is to strengthen protections for financial consumers by amending legislation underpinning the FSPO so it can continue to carry out its statutory functions in line with the Constitution.
Built by scoring every sentence in the debate on how distinctive its language is, then quoting the highest-scoring ones back word for word and in the order spoken. Nothing is paraphrased or invented — if a sentence appears here, it was said in the chamber. Drawn from 260 words across 12 contributions by 5 speakers.
How often each word appears across the whole debate, ranked by how distinctive it is to this debate rather than common to all parliamentary language.
All 12 contributions, start to finish, in the order they were made. The one you came here for is highlighted.
I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Troy. I welcome our guests in the Gallery who are from Germany, Belgium and Ballymun. They are all very welcome and I hope they enjoy their visit to Leinster House today.
When is it proposed to take Fifth Stage?
Now.
Is that agreed to? Agreed.
I thank the Senators who are present, and those who attended debates on previous Stages of the Bill, for their contributions to the debate, particularly in recent weeks, and for their very constructive engagement with the legislation.
The Financial Services and Pension Ombudsman is an independent, impartial, fair and free service that helps resolve complaints from consumers, including small businesses, against financial service providers and pension providers. It provides a vital service for consumers of financial services in Ireland. The Bill was originally published on 19 December 2023. It is heartening to see it through the final legislative Stages in the Seanad today, particularly given the key aim of the Bill is to strengthen protections for financial consumers by amending legislation underpinning the FSPO so it can continue to carry out its statutory functions in line with the Constitution.
It will significantly improve the consumer protection framework in Ireland and, importantly, it will clarify that customers of financial services providers that have left the Irish market will continue to be able to access the existing services and consumer protections afforded by the FSPO. All mortgage holders will now have access to the FSPO, even if their mortgage loan was a credit servicer that was unregulated before the Acts of 2015 and 2018.
Once again, I thank colleagues here and in the Dáil for their input and careful consideration of the Bill since its introduction. I am happy the Bill has now passed all Stages and will go to Uachtarán na hÉireann to be signed into law.
I congratulate the Minister of State on the successful shepherding of this legislation through the Oireachtas. It is important to pick up on one of the points the Minister of State mentioned relating to the public. This service is a free service and it is important to stress that there is no levy or charge. This is a free service provided to make protection a key priority for financial consumers.
We are happy with everything in this Bill except for the vulture funds which I must comment on because there were promises made. These are mortgage prisoners and they are still very unhappy. There is great progress with this Bill. My colleague, Deputy Doherty, did a lot of work and the Government accepted some of the amendments. However, we need to put on record there are still mortgage prisoners of vulture funds and we need to bear that in mind.
I welcome Minister of State, Deputy Troy, to the Chamber and I thank his officials for their hard work in getting this Bill through. It is a welcome development and it is great that there is support across the House.
The officials from the Department are very welcome and I congratulate them on the passing of the Bill.
When is it proposed to sit again?
It is proposed to sit again at 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 29 April.
Is that agreed? Agreed.