Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 7, to delete lines 17 and 18.

Amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 12 should be read together with the proposal to delete section 4 of the Bill. The amendments are technical. Deputies will remember that the Companies Act 2014 was a major project to reform Irish company law. One of the aims of that project was to have an Act that could be updated easily without changing its name each time. Experience shows that company law needs to be updated regularly. By keeping the name of the 2014 Act, references to the Companies Act 2014 in forms and contracts do not have to be changed each time there is a new companies Act. This is the approach that has been taken in the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997.

Section 4 of the Bill is the only section that does not amend an existing section or insert a new section into the Companies Act 2014 and, as a result, section 1 provides that the name of the Companies Act will change. Amendment No. 1 deletes the references to the Companies Acts 2014 and 2016 and as it is proposed to delete section 4 the Bill, amendment No. 2 deletes references to section 4 from section 1. However, the content of section 4 is important. It provides for some early application of the Bill so that companies can benefit from the savings in time and effort as soon as possible. Accordingly, amendment No. 12 moves the content of section 4 from its current place and inserts it into a new section 15.

In this way we can keep the advantages of the provision in section 4 and maintain the benefits of not changing the name of the Companies Act 2014.