Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 100:

In page 88, to delete lines 4 to 7 and substitute the following: “(a) a service contract, where the service has been fully supplied and the supply of the service began with the consumer’s prior express consent and acknowledgement that he or she will lose the right to cancel once the service has been fully supplied by the trader,”.

There are a small number of amendments proposed to section 111. Their purpose is to give full and accurate effect to Article 16 of the consumer rights directive, as amended by Article 4(12) of the better enforcement and modernisation directive. These are small technical changes to clarify the section and do not reflect a policy change. As some digital service contracts will involve the payment of a price by the consumer while others will not, Article 16(a) provides for different rules for the two forms of contract. Sections 111(1)(a) to 111(1)(d) of the Bill deal with the application of Chapter 5 to service contracts. The proposed amendments revise these subsections.

Amendment No. 100 deletes the current section 111(1)(a) as it is unnecessary given that the provisions contained therein are already provided for in section 97(2)(b). It replaces this with the text of the current section 111(1)(d). This is because section 111(1)(d) gives effect to the first of the application provisions in Article 16 of the consumer rights directive. It is therefore appropriate to transfer the text of section 111(1)(d) to section 111(1)(a).

Amendments Nos. 101 and 102 amend section 111(1)(b) to ensure that Chapter 5 does not apply to digital service contracts after the digital service has been fully supplied if the contract does not place the consumer under an obligation to pay the price of the digital service. This takes account of the fact that, for digital service contracts that do not place the consumer under an obligation to pay the price of a digital service, only the first part of Article 16(a) of the consumer rights directive applies.

Amendment No. 103 replaces the current sections 111(1)(c), 111(1)(e) and 111(1)(f). The current text of section 111(1)(c) is deleted and replaced to provide that Chapter 5 does not apply to the digital service contract after the digital service has been fully supplied if the contract places the consumer under an obligation to pay the price of the service and supply of the digital service has begun with the consumer's prior expressed consent and acknowledgement that he or she will lose the right to cancel the contract once it has been fully performed by the trader. This gives effect to both parts of Article 16(a) of the consumer rights directive. A new section 111(1)(d) is to be inserted to provide that Chapter 5 does not apply to a contract for the supply of digital content not supplied on a tangible medium where the supply of the digital content has begun and the contract does not place the consumer under an obligation to pay the price of the digital content. This change gives proper effect to Article 16(m) of the consumer rights directive.

For digital content contracts that place the consumer under an obligation to pay the price of the digital content, Article 16(m) applies in full. The new section 111(1)(e) provides accordingly that Chapter 5 does not apply to a contract for the supply of digital content not supplied on a tangible medium where the performance of the digital content has begun if the contract places the consumer under an obligation to pay, the consumer has provided prior express consent to the performance of the digital content beginning during the cancellation period and acknowledges that he or she thereby loses the right to cancel the contract and the trader has provided confirmation of the contract in accordance with section 105 or, as the case may be, section 109.