Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)

I welcome the points made by the Deputies and I am happy to clarify the issues. With regard to the letter referred to by Deputy O'Dea, it contains other paragraphs which I will read into the record. I do not know whether the Deputy has a copy of it. Deputy O'Dea's quote from the letter was: "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." This is not the full context of the letter as it also states:

The Financial Regulator has noted your proposal and does look on this matter sympathetically. However, it cannot exempt your members from a statutory requirement. The position remains that the legal obligation on investment business firms (including insurance intermediaries) to submit audited annual accounts derives from the statutory provisions contained in the Investment Intermediaries Act, 1995. Those provisions apply to all investment business firms subject to the IIA and are not applied on a case by case basis. Insurance intermediaries will fall for regulation under the supervisory framework set out in the Insurance Mediation Regulations of 2005, which transposed the Insurances Mediation Directive into Irish Law only when the IMRs have been revised to ensure proper transposition of the Directive. Once fully transposed, insurance intermediaries that do not provide investment services would no longer [be] subject to the legislative and supervisory requirements applying under the IIA.

The Central Bank would not object to insurance intermediaries being removed from the IIA in circumstances where they are covered by final Insurance Mediation Regulations which have been transposed into law. Removing the requirement for Insurance Intermediaries to be audited under the Companies Act would conflict with the requirements set out in the IIA. Likewise, removal of Insurance Intermediaries from the IIA without suitable supporting Regulations or Legislation would result in these entities falling outside the scope of regulation which is not a situation the Central Bank would be comfortable with at all.

With regard to the issue raised by Deputy Tóibín, more than likely the companies Bill, which the Department hopes to publish towards the end of the year, will be the appropriate vehicle or context in which to consider these amendments. The Department has a clear intention to take on board all of the issues raised and, if appropriate, to place them in legislation to be published by the end of the year so the Central Bank, the regulators and the Department of Finance are all happy with what we are doing. This is pretty quick considering the legislation before us and our commitment to having an appropriate vehicle for the regulations.

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