Sunday Times Interview Anthony Carmody

Anthony Carmody interviewed as part of an article in the Sunday Times

One of our partners, Anthony Carmody, was interviewed as part of an article in the Sunday Times (14 February 2021) written by their Money editor Eithne Dunne. He was asked to contribute to an article regarding the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman decisions over the past twelve months.As you can see from the article which is here: the case which caught his eye was one involving a child who successfully complained about a financial institution which had allowed the child’s savings account to be effectively emptied by their father. The child’s parents had opened a junior savers account for the child when she was a few months old and over the years the father had withdrawn tens of thousands of Euros from the account without the child’s knowledge or consent.

The Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman deals with claims involving financial institutions or insurance companies where consumers have had issues with the service that they have been provided or other matters arising from their day to day activities with insurers and banks post offices etc. It provides a review service of complaints.

Anthony was particularly heartened by the fact that this child was able to get the money back which had been taken out of his account. The particulars of the case showed that the child had had an account opened on his behalf by his parents and was supposed to become a signatory to the post office account when he was seven but due to an oversight, this was never done. In the following years, the father of the child withdrew over €60,000 from the post office account and once the child reached the age of 18, he made a complaint to An Post in relation to this but did not receive any satisfaction from them and so made a complaint to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman because of this. By bringing the complaint to the FSPO, it avoid the child having to go to Court and involve himself in expensive litigation and, as can be seen from the decision, the FSPO found in the child’s favour with the financial institution having to refund to the child all the money which had been taken out of his account plus interest! The full decision is here:

The decision clearly shows that financial institutions have a duty of care to their accountholders, no matter what their age is, and to ensure that their monies are not taken out by others and that children are treated with the same care that an adult accountholder would be.

Anthony Carmody Senior Partner at Carmody Moran Solicitors
Anthony Carmody is a qualified solicitor with over 20 years’ experience in leading Dublin law firms. Anthony has specialised in the area of defending personal injury claims representing Insurance companies and Local Authorities, as well as undertaking claimant cases and estate planning.