MarySmyth
Please read the Ombudman's website. Your information is well out of date and incorrect.
The voluntary banking ombudsman and the voluntary insurance ombudsman were both replaced by a statutory Ombusman Scheme Scheme for the Financial Services Sector. The Committee of the Ombudsman was appointed by the Minister for Finance and includes represenatives of industry and consumers. The consumer representatives are from MABS, FLAC and the Consumers Association.
It is a huge improvement on the previous schemes and if the industry doesn't like the Ombudsman, they can do nothing about it, whether they finance it or not.
I do believe that Joe Meade the Ombudsman is very independent minded and will not take any nonsense. I don't know how technically good he is at understanding complex financial and insurance issues. We haven't seen enough of his decisions to judge that yet. But would he be any different than a judge of the circuit? I suspect that he will be better informed.
The only downside is that the Chairman of the Ombudsman scheme is the vice-chairman of the Irish Nationwide Building Society, which, rightly or wrongly, does damage confidence in the scheme. I would not expect any member of the committee to interfere in a decision by the Ombudsman, and if they did try, I would expect Joe Meade would tell them what to do with themselves.
Brendan