Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 14 September 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

General Scheme of Representative Actions for the Protection of the Collective Interests of Consumers Bill 2022: Discussion

Photo of Louise O'ReillyLouise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yes, I believe it would be required in all likelihood.

Head 7, which concerns parties in a representative action, states that all costs will be borne by the qualified entity. There is an expense to bringing a case. Given that only nominal fees can be accepted by qualified entities, this creates a difficulty. The High Court is not cheap, as the witnesses noted in their submission.

Dr. Johnny Ryan from the Irish Council for Civil Liberties has pointed out that Article 20(1) of the directive provides that "member states shall take account of the non-profit making character of qualified entities and ensure that a lack of funding is not a bar to bringing representative actions". Should the Bill be reconfigured to enable non-profit organisations to source some funding for collective actions given that it is not going to be free or, indeed, cheap to take such actions? I am interested in hearing the views of the witnesses.

One of the witnesses asked if we were happy, as legislators, that consumers and others would be disadvantaged. Of course we will all say we are not happy that they would be disadvantaged but we need to do something about that by trying to put a bit of shape on what that would look like. If we are excluding not-for-profit entities that have a very real issue and may wish to take such cases, they will be barred from doing so because of the funding rules. Do the witnesses have a view on how we might make a change to ensure the Bill is as broad as possible to encompass as many not-for-profit organisations as possible? If they are going to be excluded, this provision will not work.

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