the sectors and financial products it regulates. This morning's report is a performance review of the Regulator for the past two years.

It accuses the Regulator of sidelining the interests of consumers at the height of the financial crisis.

Consumers had been hard hit, it says, by the Regulator's failure to deflate the property bubble, clamp down on risky products,

investigate rising insurance premiums and provide meaningful protection for those in mortgage arrears.

 

"Many consumers with mortgages, pensions or shares have and will pay the price for this failure for many years," it says. "They have suffered

from negative equity on their homes, poorer returns on pension funds and the pack of availability of credit. "The cost of bailing out the banking

system has contributed to rising unemployment,wage and social welfare cuts and higher tax rates." It adds that the reforms announced to date

will not be sufficient to avert a similar crisis in the future. "We believe it is unacceptable that the board of the Financial Regulator has failed to take

responsibility for their stewardship of the organisation during the last six years. This failure undermines their ability to enhance or enforce corporate

governance in the wider financial services sector." The report by the 11 person panel calls for an independent investigation into what went wrong.

 

It says it is unacceptable that so little has been done to enhance corporate government since the crisis emerged. The panel's chairman

Raymond O'Rourke has also told the Irish Times this morning that it was unable to function for nearly a year because officials ignored

requests for meetings. Separately, Mr O'Rourke also tells the paper that the panel has sought a meeting with the Regulator over the 18m euro

being repaid by credit card company MBNA to customers it overcharged. It wants to know why MBNA was not fined for overcharging

when smaller operators were penalised for minor infractions.