THE Fianna Fail spokesperson on Enterprise and Employment, Ms. Mary O'Rourke, has strongly criticised Government proposals that investment intermediaries be regulated by the Central Bank and insurance intermediaries be regulated by other regulators.

Ms O'Rourke's comments follow similar criticism of the Government proposals last Friday by the Consumers Association of Ireland.

"This will give rise to a situation where intermediaries who offer both investment and insurance products will have two different regulators. There will be no one regulator looking at the intermediary in an overall way as there should be.

"Two regulators will cause confusion and will allow some intermediaries to hide problems. Once again, as happened in the Taylor affair, things will fall between cracks and nothing will be discovered until it is too late," said the Fianna Fail spokesperson.

"If Minister Rabbitte's plan goes ahead, it will just mean that we lurch from one unsatisfactory regulatory regime operated by the Irish Brokers' Association to another unsatisfactory one operated by the Central Bank," she added.

Ms O'Rourke asked the Minister to wait until the Dail Committee on Enterprise and Economic Strategy hears submissions from representatives of the Industry Working Party on Intermediaries.

She said that she has asked that this group be invited to the next meeting of the committee, which is currently examining the Taylor collapse, and which is due to make, its interim report to the Dail in two weeks' time.