Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I move amendment No. 1:

In page 6, between lines 27 and 28, to insert the following:

“Amendment of section 28A of Act of 1995

4.Section 28A of the Act of 1995 is amended, in subsection (1), by the substitution of “high cost credit agreement” for “moneylending agreement”.”.

The proposed new section 4 of the Bill adds a definition for a nominal rate to the Act of 1995, as this is a type of interest rate cap placed on running accounts. A running account operates similarly to a type of credit card and is a product sometimes offered by catalogue companies. This technical amendment seeks to update a schedule of references to deter moneylending, following the passing of the recent Act. One of the purposes of the Bill is to replace the term "moneylending" with the term “high cost credit” where it occurs on the Statute Book. Since this Bill was published, the Consumer Protection (Regulation of Retail Credit and Credit Servicing Firms) Act 2022 has added another reference to the word "moneylending" in the Statute Book. The reference to "moneylending" should be replaced by the term “high cost credit”. This is only a change of nomenclature or name.

Amendments Nos. 2 to 4, inclusive, and amendment No. 6 are grouped together for discussion purposes. Amendment No. 4 sets out the substantive change while amendments Nos. 2, 3 and 6 are required to be inserted appropriately into the Bill. We have worked closely with the Central Bank in the drafting of this Bill because the bank is the licensing authority for high-cost credit providers. These amendments will allow the Central Bank-----