Questions

143. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance if the Department or the Central Bank of Ireland has been notified of a proposed sale or transfer of residential mortgage loans from organisations (details supplied); the number of residential mortgage accounts involved; the number of those accounts in arrears or subject to ongoing complaints to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman; and if a…

144. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the protections that apply to borrowers whose residential mortgages are transferred between non-bank loan owners or credit servicing firms, including under the Consumer Protection Code, the Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears and the Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Act 2018; whether a complaint lodged with the Financial Ser…

444. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance if his Department has engaged with the Central Bank of Ireland regarding the use by regulated financial service providers of facial image capture, facial recognition, or other facial biometric processing technologies for customer onboarding, authentication, fraud prevention, or identity verification purposes; and if he will make a statement on the ma…

445. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance whether the Central Bank of Ireland has issued, or is preparing to issue, supervisory guidance for regulated financial service providers regarding the use of facial biometric processing technologies, including requirements relating to lawful processing bases, consumer transparency, data minimisation, storage limitation, security safeguards, and the a…

446. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance whether regulated financial service providers operating in the State are required, as a matter of supervisory expectation or consumer protection regulation, to provide customers with a reasonable non-biometric alternative where facial image capture or facial biometric verification is used for onboarding, authentication, fraud prevention, or account a…

447. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance whether his Department or the Central Bank of Ireland maintains information on the number of regulated financial service providers using facial image capture or facial biometric processing technologies for identity verification, customer onboarding, authentication, or fraud prevention; if so, the number of such firms and the general purposes for whic…

448. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance whether his Department has considered whether the Consumer Protection Code or other financial regulatory frameworks should be updated to provide explicit standards governing the use of facial image capture and facial biometric technologies by regulated financial service providers, including standards concerning transparency to customers, consent mech…

449. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance whether his Department or the Central Bank of Ireland holds data on operational incidents, data protection incidents, or consumer complaints reported by regulated financial service providers relating to the use of facial image capture or facial biometric processing technologies since 1 January 2023; if so, the number of such incidents by year and gen…

180. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance whether the Central Bank of Ireland requires regulated financial institutions to notify it where multiple legal claims involving materially similar facts or customer cohorts are settled on a confidential basis; if so, the notification mechanism and thresholds which applied; and if not, the way in which the Central Bank is assured that such settlement…

181. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the number of occasions since 2019 on which the Central Bank of Ireland has required a regulated financial institution to extend redress beyond individual litigants to a wider customer cohort following the outcome of litigation or confidential settlement; and the statutory or supervisory basis relied upon in each case. [9061/26]

182. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance whether the Central Bank of Ireland maintains internal guidance, criteria, or decision-making frameworks to assess when repeated settlements or litigation outcomes indicate a breach of the "stop the harm" principle; and whether he will publish the headline principles of any such framework in the interests of transparency. [9062/26]

183. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance to provide a sectoral breakdown, for each of the past five years, of anti-money laundering and know-your-customer supervisory inspections carried out by the Central Bank of Ireland, distinguishing between credit institutions, investment funds, fund service providers, and other financial institutions. [9063/26]

184. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the number of supervisory findings, remedial directions, or enforcement actions issued by the Central Bank of Ireland since 2019 which involved deficiencies in the identification or verification of ultimate beneficial owners; and whether such deficiencies arose more frequently in any particular sector. [9064/26]

185. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance whether the Central Bank of Ireland collects or analyses data on the frequency with which regulated firms rely on third-party customer due diligence under section 40 of the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010; and whether any supervisory concerns have arisen regarding delayed, incomplete, or inaccessible underlying be…

186. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance whether the Central Bank of Ireland requires firms relying on third parties for customer due diligence to conduct periodic assurance testing to confirm that full underlying documentation can be produced without delay; and how compliance with this requirement is monitored at supervisory level. [9066/26]

187. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance whether the Central Bank of Ireland has identified any instances where reliance on intermediaries or professional advisers has resulted in delayed identification of beneficial owners or incomplete source-of-funds verification; and whether any thematic reviews have been conducted in this area. [9067/26]

216. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance whether the Central Bank of Ireland permits regulated financial institutions to accept funds or open accounts where the ultimate beneficial owner has not been identified and verified in accordance with anti-money laundering legislation; whether any exemptions or alternative arrangements are recognised in supervisory guidance; and if he will provide d…

219. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the number of supervisory inspections, enforcement actions, or remedial directions relating to failures in anti-money laundering or know your customer compliance were issued by the Central Bank of Ireland in each of the past five years; and whether any related to failures to identify ultimate beneficial owners. [7151/26]

221. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance whether his Department has been made aware, through engagement with the Central Bank of Ireland, of any pattern of confidential High Court settlements entered into by an organisation (details supplied) relating to mortgage or consumer banking disputes following the conclusion of the tracker mortgage examination; and whether such settlements have been…

222. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the policies or guidance in place to ensure that where a regulated financial institution settles multiple similar legal claims on a confidential basis, the Central Bank assesses whether those settlements constitute evidence of ongoing consumer detriment requiring market-wide redress; and whether he will provide details of any such assessments carried…

223. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance whether the Central Bank has an obligation, under the consumer protection framework arising from the tracker mortgage examination, to apply the "stop the harm" principle where evidence emerges of repeated settlements affecting a defined customer cohort; and whether he is satisfied that this principle is being applied consistently where redress is obt…

224. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance whether he is concerned that permitting individual confidential settlements by regulated banks, without requiring equivalent redress for all similarly affected customers, risks creating unequal access to justice within the banking system; and whether he will review the adequacy of the Central Bank's powers and practices to ensure that consumer protec…

349. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the steps taken by his Department to assess whether regulated credit institutions have, at any time since 2007, applied undisclosed credit exposures or internal credit lines to SME borrowers that were not disclosed in loan documentation; the role of the Central Bank in monitoring such practices; and the protections in place to ensure that all borrowe…

350. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance if he will outline whether the Central Bank has conducted any supervisory reviews since 2007 into the use of embedded derivative risks, undisclosed credit lines, or internal exposure modelling in connection with fixed-rate loans or interest-rate risk management products sold to SMEs;; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [71041/25]

351. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance if his Department has assessed whether historical supervisory actions by the Central Bank adequately evaluated the treatment of SME borrowers whose loan-to-value positions or credit classifications may have been influenced by undisclosed internal bank calculations or exposures; and his views on whether further examination is warranted. [71042/25]