Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The financial contracts now incorporated by way of updating our definitions under the Netting of Financial Contracts Act 1995 are set out in the section. That is only ten years old. There has been significant innovation in this area such as interest rate contracts, which are one or more of single currency interest rate swaps, forward rate agreements, and interest rate futures. There is a range of financial contracts for which we need to update our definition to ensure the 1995 Act covers them. Under the directive we are required to do that and we are doing so.

I take the point that these are specialised technical financial instruments whose detail and scope would be known only by those who daily engage in this sort of work. If the Deputy wishes I will try to get a more detailed brief of what these contracts do for Report Stage. The section basically aims to update our definition under the 1995 Act to ensure we cover those areas.

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