Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

I move amendment No. 17:

In page 7, between lines 42 and 43, to insert the following:

"(2) It shall be a condition of a licence under section 4 that—

(a) the premium rate service provider shall ensure that any service of an ongoing nature may be readily terminated by the user at any time, and in the case of a service provided by SMS, the user may terminate the service at any time by sending "stop" in reply to any SMS received,

(b) where a premium rate service provider fails to comply with paragraph (a) in any particular case, he or she shall refund the user in accordance with and subject to regulations under subsection (1) and shall pay the user compensation in accordance with and subject to such regulations.".

This goes back to this issue of the "stop". The subject of many complaints was that people found they were being billed for a service which they were not aware would cost them much or which they did not even know they had taken up. It must be easy for a user to opt out of the service and there must be real sanctions if the service provider does not stop the service on demand.

On Committee Stage, the Minister said what we proposed was a bit too prescriptive. I have altered the amendment somewhat to try to allow for that and to allow that all actions would be in accordance with regulations. However, it is a particular issue that needs to be specified in the Bill because it is raised so often. Regtel's experience was that this was a feature in the number of complaints and queries it received.

See this speech in context