The statutory group charged with monitoring the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority on behalf of consumers took no notice of the official report into the demise of Cork stockbroker W&R Morrogh, in which investors lost €7 million.

The Morrogh Working Group report was published by the Government on November 1st last year and was widely reported in the print and broadcast media.

But the Financial Services Consultative Consumer Panel, which includes professional and small business consumers of financial services, said in a letter to the financial regulator that it had no knowledge of the report until last May. "While we are now aware that the report was issued in Oct [ sic] 2006, the first knowledge we had of it in the Consumer Panel was May 2007, when an executive summary was distributed. Following this, we requested a copy of the full report," the body said on September 21st.

Panel chairman Brendan Burgess declined to comment on its failure to take any account of the report for more than half a year. He also declined to comment on a Sunday newspaper report that he had resigned his post because of tension with the regulator.

The panel's letter was published on its website yesterday after The Irish Times queried a complaint about the report to financial regulator chief executive Pat Neary from Mr Burgess, an accountant and founder of the askaboutmoney.com website.

Mr Burgess alleged in the complaint - dated July 24th and published on the panel's website - that the Morrogh report was "extremely deficient" and said it was "only recently" published. "We are extremely disappointed with the apparent lack of any tangible progress to protect consumers from another such occurrence," he said then.

In a second letter published on foot of The Irish Times' query, Anne Troy in the regulator's office is shown to reply on behalf of Mr Neary to Mr Burgess on August 15th. "I note that the Consumer Panel has reviewed the Final Report of the Morrogh Working Group, which was issued in October 2006. "You state that the panel believes there is nothing constructive in the report or in anything that has happened since the collapse of Morrogh's which would have a positive impact on customers if the same situation arose again."

Ms Troy said the report contained 20 recommendations, only one of which referred to the regulator. The regulator was liaising with the Investor Compensation Company Limited on the development of pre-determined rules for the distribution of client assets, she said. The panel's failure to take account of the report was revealed in its response to Ms Troy, which was signed by panel member Michael Connolly.

"Our submission was not a criticism of the financial regulator - our recommendation was for you to take the initiative" and "lead the preparation of an urgent and appropriate action plan which would result in positive developments for consumers being implemented within, at most, the next 12 months," the panel said.