Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

When the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment was present for the Order of Business on Thursday, I raised with her the problems that are arising as a result of the Defamation Bill being before the relevant committee for the past ten months. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has indicated that a number of amendments to the Bill are being drafted by the Attorney General. This matter is worthy of attention because those on the newspaper side did a deal under which the previous Taoiseach and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform were supposed to take further action. Will the current Taoiseach, in due course, make available some information regarding the range or nature of the amendments that are under consideration?

The debates on the Bill in the Seanad and on Second Stage in this House were quite lengthy. I would not want the situation regarding the Bill to unravel. This could happen if cover is not given in respect of judgments that are reported by the Press Council. The council will be producing its report this week.

Earlier today I met representatives of the financial payments company, Western Union. I am sure officials from the Department of Finance also met these individuals. As the Taoiseach is aware, Western Union is a major international operator and is seeking to expand its activities in Ireland. In addition to Western Union, PayPal, another financial payments company, employs 900 people in Dublin. These companies are concerned with regard to the transposition of the directive on payment services into Irish law. This directive was adopted by the European Commission in November 2007 and has since been adopted and transposed into law by the UK. The difficulty appears to be that in January the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, was unable to indicate how he proposed to draft the regulations relating to Article 52.3 of the directive in question, which states, "The payment service provider shall not prevent the payee from requesting from the payer a charge or from offering him a reduction for the use of a given payment instrument."

Western Union and others are anxious to give consideration to expanding their operations — and hence employment — in Ireland. However, the fact that the regulations have not yet been drafted is a cause of some concern. Will the Taoiseach contact the Department of Finance to ensure that the regulations, particularly those relating to Article 52.3 of the payment services directive, be drafted as quickly as possible in order that the directive might be transposed into law?

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