Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 January 2018
201. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Finance his plans to bring forward technical amendments to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman Act 2017; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55004/17]
View answerAs the Deputy will be aware, matching definitions for long-term financial service were used in both the Government legislation and the Sinn Féin legislation passed by the Oireachtas last year in relation to this Ombudsman.
The Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman Act 2017 provides that
"long-term financial service" means—
(a) subject to paragraph (b), a financial service the duration of which is a fixed term of 5 years and one month, or more, but, notwithstanding that the aggregate term of them may be 5 years and one month (or more), there does not fall within this paragraph a series of consecutive terms in respect of a financial service's duration (provided no individual one of them is 5 years and one month, or more, in length); or
(b) a financial service that is life assurance to which, by virtue of Regulation 4 of those Regulations, the European Communities (Life Assurance) Framework Regulations 1994 (S.I. No. 360 of 1994) apply (not being life assurance falling within Class VII defined in the first Annex thereto) and regardless of whether the term of which life assurance is fixed at a specified calendar period or not;"
The policy intent of paragraph (b) was to capture life assurance contracts of all durations, including open ended products.
However, it has emerged that the wording used will not achieve the policy objective because the European Union (Insurance and Reinsurance) Regulations 2015 implementing the Solvency II Directive superseded the 1994 Regulations for many insurance undertakings.
I accept that primary legislation will be required to resolve this issue and I hope to be able to address this as part of the MIFID implementation legislation shortly. I am also considering a possible further technical amendment to address an issue already raised by the Deputy.
