knowledge 22 May 2025 |

FSPO Amendment Act 2025: Greater access to FSPO for consumers

The FSPO (Amendment) Bill 2023 was initially introduced following the ruling in Zalewski v Adjudication Office & ors [2021] IESC 24 (“Zalewski”), relating to the exercise of a quasi-judicial function. The Act reflects this judgment to allow the FSPO to continue to carry out its statutory function in accordance with the Constitution. In addition to this, the Act expands the meaning of ‘financial service provider’ to bring a wider range of entities within scope of the FSPO’s jurisdiction and provides further detail generally in respect of the FSPO’s functions.

Zalewski related changes

In April 2021, the Supreme Court delivered its judgment in Zalewski regarding the Workplace Relations Commission (the “WRC”) and its quasi-judicial function. The Supreme Court held that Adjudication Officers of the WRC and members of the Labour Court are administering justice in the course of their adjudication of most employment and equality rights claims, in a manner permitted within the meaning of Article 37 of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the validity of certain sections of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 and section 8 of the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977, as amended. However, the Supreme Court separately determined that two aspects of the 2015 Act were incompatible with the Constitution: the blanket prohibition on public hearings and the lack of capacity of Adjudication Officers to take evidence on oath.

For more detail on the Zalewski judgment, please see our briefing here.

The Act attempts to address the outcome in Zalewski by making the following changes to the 2017 Act:

• Powers in relation to investigation of complaint – sections in relation to examinations by the FSPO have been expanded to include cross-examination and for examination and cross-examination to be given on oath or affirmation, a change from the previous power to solely examine on oath.
• Conduct of investigation – the addition of a new subsection to allow the FSPO to decide whether an oral hearing should be conducted in public, having consulted the parties to the complaint, having regard to the nature of the complaint, and determining whether an oral hearing is in the interests of justice.
• Mediation – the 2017 Act has been updated to provide that mediations by the FSPO are to be conducted in private.
• Obstruction of work of FSPO – the list of offences under the 2017 Act have been extended so that a refusal to attend before the FSPO pursuant to a summons, in order to be examined on oath, now includes being cross-examined and being examined or cross-examined on oath or affirmation. An offence of giving false evidence on oath or affirmation has also been added.
• Decisions of FSPO ­­– a new subsection to allow the FSPO to identify the complainant and financial service provider or pension provider when the FSPO is publishing a decision, case study or report, where there has been an oral hearing, and it has been held in public.

Other changes

The Act makes changes generally to strengthen the protection for financial service and pension consumers. A notable change is the clarification regarding the meanings of a financial service provider and pension provider to include those that have since left the Irish market. The inclusion of such clarification gives consumers of such entities a clear statutory right of complaint to the FSPO where such providers fell within the meaning of a financial service provider or pension provider under the 2017 Act at the time of the conduct complained of and have since ceased operating in Ireland.

Further, the definition of financial service provider has been extended to include persons who engaged in credit-agreement related activities before those activities were regulated. On an administrative level, the Act amends the provisions relating to the deputy FSPO in recognising there may be more than one deputy FSPO.

While the clarification of the meaning of financial service provider and pension provider under the 2017 Act may increase the number of complaints that the FSPO receives, which the FSPO has stated are rising year-on-year, reaching a historic high of 6,185 in 2024 (see here), the changes made by the Act are to be welcomed as they bring greater clarity for consumers as well as financial service and pension providers.

For any queries or for further information, please contact one of the key contacts below or your usual contacts in McCann FitzGerald LLP.

Also contributed to by Ben Robertson