Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State has not outlined what his view is on this matter. Do he believe the CCPC should be empowered with financial sanctions? Some of our other regulations such as the Central Bank of Ireland, the Commission for Energy Regulation or the Data Protection Commissioner have powers to impose a financial sanction, yet this regulator does not. It is high time we seriously examined this matter. The Minister of State has cited to us on a number of occasions when we have raised this matter the constitutional issue but no more than the lack of regulations covering the gift voucher industry, which we conversed about earlier, it is the consumer who is ultimately losing out. What is the Minister of State's own take on this issue? Is he in favour of such a measure or will he merely coast along and allow another consultation process to drift on. We have had numerous comments, as the Minister of State will know, from the Attorney General on the constitutional prohibition in regard to it. Is the Minister of State in favour or not in favour of such a measure?

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