Make a complaint against the Central Bank of Ireland or one of our Regulatory Decisions

This section sets out:

• How to make a complaint against the Central Bank

The Central Bank is committed to ensuring that our staff treat you with respect and courtesy at all times and we will endeavour to make sure that the appropriate person deals with your request when you contact us. In return, we expect that you treat our staff with courtesy and respect.

As stated in the Central Bank's Customer Charter, should you have any concerns about the services you have received or the manner in which the organisation has dealt with you, you may wish to lodge a complaint with us. We have a Complaints Procedure for this purpose. If your complaint is to be dealt with under this Complaints Procedure, it must:

• Relate to a service received from the Central Bank; or
• Relate to the Central Bank or an officer of the Central Bank rather than any other organisation, whether regulated or not.

This procedure will not investigate complaints about regulated financial services firms. Read about how to make a complaint against a Financial Service Provider.

This procedure will not investigate disclosures made under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014. Read about how to investigate disclosures made under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014.

How to make a complaint against the Central Bank

An overview of the complaints process and how it operated can be found in the Complaints Handling Procedure. In summary, there are three stages:

• Stage 1 - all complaints are initially assessed by the Complaints Officer;
• Stage 2 - where the initial assessment recommends that an investigation is merited, this will then be actioned; and
• Stage 3 - if a complainant remains dissatisfied with the outcome from Stage 1 or 2, an appeal can be lodged. In such cases where it is considered that a further review is merited, an Independent Adjudicator will be appointed.

The Central Bank also has a Disability Complaints Handling Procedure  in line with guidance from the National Disability Authority.

All complaints should be directed to the Complaints Officer. The contact details and information required in order to make your complaint are detailed below.

Contact Details

The Complaints Officer contact details are as follows:

E-mail: [email protected]
Telephone number: +353 1 224 6000

Address:

Complaints Officer
Internal Governance Division
Central Bank of Ireland
PO Box 559
New Wapping Street
North Wall Quay
Dublin 1

Information you should provide

You should fill out our Complaints Form. The Complaints Form can be submitted electronically, by entering the details and clicking on the ‘Submit’ button. The complaint form can also be downloaded and submitted by post to the address shown above.

Alternatively, you can provide the following specific details in writing:

• Your name;
• Address;
• Daytime telephone number;
• Date of the occurrence;
• Name of the division and/or officer you dealt with;
• Details of what you may be dissatisfied with.

How your complaint will be dealt with

• When you officially lodge your complaint, as above, your complaint will be acknowledged within three working days, and will include a reference number;
• We will assess your complaint and issue a reply within four weeks of receipt of the original complaint, or if this is not possible, update you on the progress of the assessment within that time frame;
• All complaints will be dealt with promptly, fairly and impartially;
• Up-to-date records of all complaints, including the outcome of investigations, will be maintained;
• We will apologise for any mistake, explain what happened and put it right wherever possible; and
• We will examine our procedures if necessary to try and ensure that any errors are not repeated.

How to make a complaint against our Regulatory Decisions

Under legislation, specified decisions of the Central Bank may be appealed to the Irish Financial Services Appeals Tribunal, and a formal statutory procedure exists for such appeals.

If you consider that you may wish to appeal a decision of the Central Bank to the Irish Financial Services Appeals Tribunal, you should contact the tribunal at:

The Irish Financial Services Appeals Tribunal
First Floor
4/5 Arran Square
Lincoln Lane
Arran Quay
Dublin 7
D07 CTX4

We also recommend that you obtain legal advice.