Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)

I think it was Oscar Wilde who once said that when trying to make excuses for not doing something one excuse is more believable than several. The Minister of State has given several excuses for not accepting these amendments, the first of which is that this is the wrong legislation in which to make this change, which is nonsense. The Investment Intermediaries Act is not before the House. We are dealing with company law legislation, which is the appropriate legislation to make the amendment if the will existed. The Minister of State has told us that the Department of Finance and Central Bank are not in agreement with this proposed change. I would like to put on record the information available to me in this regard. I challenge the Minister of State to deny this.

Some three years ago in 2009 the then Minister for Finance, who was acting on the advice of the Department, promised that this legislation would be changed to accommodate the type of situation I am seeking to address.

In a letter to PIBA dated 9 May 2012, the Central Bank confirmed the issue was considered by the Department of Finance during 2009 but was not finalised. The letter states:

The proposed amendments included removing insurance intermediaries from the scope of the Investment Intermediaries Act 1995. I confirm that the Central Bank had no objections to this proposal.

Could anything be clearer than this? We are now told the Department of Finance and the Central Bank have not made up their minds. They both had their minds made up three years ago. Has the situation changed in any material way since? Has a different decision been made? Have they reconsidered their position since 2009 and, if so, why?

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