The Director of Consumer Affairs, Ms Carmel Foley has said that she cannot understand how the Irish Bankers Federation (IBF) could deny that there had been a high-level call for a review of the retail payments system, given that the report from which the call came is freely available on the internet.

Ms Foley was reacting to comments made by the IBF last Friday, in which the organisation denied that the Central Bank and Department of Finance had called for a review of the retail payments system.

She says that the comments to which her office was referring came from a report that is available to download from the Department of Finance website.

However, a spokesman for the IBF said that the information quoted was now out of date and he criticised Ms Foley's comments because they suggested that a review was still under consideration.

He challenged the Office of Consumer Affairs to contact the Central Bank to ascertain if it was still calling for a review of the retail payments system.

The report quoted by Ms Foley was made by the Central Bank and Department of Finance working group on issues facing the banking sector, and was published in August 2000.

"The Central Bank should carry out a full review of the organisation of the retail payments system and its report on this matter should be provided by the Minister for Finance and published," section 4.15 of the report states.