Consumer watchdogs help unhappy customers bite back

There was a time when, "ah, sure it'll do" was a common reaction among consumers when something went wrong. Complaining was something Irish people were not very good at.

Pre-1980, an unusually large telephone bill or a long delayed telephone connection could prove difficult to sort out. Complaints might go unanswered, but there was little recourse except to wait and hope for the best.

Similarly, before 1991, a disgruntled life insurance policyholder or bank customer was entirely at the mercy of the internal complaints offices of the institution. If you didn't agree with their finding, too bad - civil litigation was a remedy few people were wealthy or brave enough to pursue.

Fortunately this has changed and Irish consumers are increasingly aware of their right to proper service.

Since they were first set up in the 1980s, two agencies, the Government Ombudsman and the Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs have played a huge role in improving the level of public and private sector service and in setting the pace for two influential sectors, the banks and the insurance industries, both of which now have an independent adjudication process for dealing with complaints taken against them. (Large businesses always having had considerable clout in settling disputes.)

The Government Ombudsman, set up in 1980, is the original office and has the responsibility of investigating and adjudicating the thousands of complaints every year against civil and public service offices, local authorities, the health boards, An Post and Telecom Eireann.

The telephone service remains a huge part of his work, but in the nearly 20 years of its existence, the Ombudsman has overseen the gradual, but significant shift in the corporate culture of the public service in its dealings with the public. Most people would now accept that citizens are also customers and should be treated with the same respect. The Ombudsman's EU counterpart, Mr Jacob Soderman, was elected by the European Parliament in 1995 and it is to his office in Strasbourg that any citizen here can complain if they believe they have been the victims of maladministration by any EU body or institution.

The establishment of the Small Claims Court, run by the District Courts service, is also recognition by the State that ordinary people, with limited means and relatively small complaints, also deserve access to an affordable system of justice.

By the 1990s the financial institutions and insurance industry grudgingly accepted they needed to set up Ombudsman's schemes. Funded entirely by member banks, building societies or insurance companies, they set out to provide, with varying degrees of success, an independent and impartial arbitration service to private individuals and small firms, once internal disputes procedures have been exhausted.

The credibility of the Insurance Ombudsman scheme has always been in question because of the restrictions imposed by the industry on its terms of reference. Despite considerable success in dealing with non-life assurance complaints in particular, the future of the scheme is in some doubt after serious charges and revelations made last week by a council member, who has resigned in protest at alleged bullying and interference with the scheme by the Ombudsman Board and the Irish Insurance Federation.

Not all adjudicators in this State are official ombudsmen, however. The Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs is a legislative watchdog with a huge brief to enforce consumer protection laws (the most important of which is the Consumer Credit Act), tradings standards, competition laws, package travel and even food and textile labelling.

The director also has a watching brief over the way banks apply their charges - a development which, because it now costs institutions £25,000 per increase, has seen a virtual end to willy-nilly cartel-like hikes in the cost of writing a cheque or setting up a direct debit.

A new EU Consumer Information Centre, attached to the Director of Consumer Affairs Office has been opened on O'Connell Street in Dublin. It includes an advice service which provides practical information and guidance to anyone who may be dissatisfied with an item or service purchased in or from an EU member-state and how to seek redress. There is no official ombudsman for the pensions industry yet but until one is appointed, the Pensions Board itself has taken on this function. One of the board's official roles is to safeguard the pension rights of all occupational pension scheme members by ensuring that their company scheme is operating in accordance with the Pensions Act.

Its investigators follow up complaints of malpractice and fraud and it is not afraid to use its legislative authority to take an offending company or pension trustee to court.

Resignations raise questions on the effectiveness of Ombudsman scheme: page 3