Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has outlined that this is the time of year when people get a lot of gift vouchers, especially children. As politicians, the best advice we should give to consumers who buy or receive gift vouchers is to ensure that the vouchers are used as quickly as possible. This is also important. People have a tendency to lose them, leave them in a drawer or let them go out of date. That is the best advice we can give at this stage. The consumer rights Bill, published in 2015, contained a set of provisions for the regulation of gift vouchers. We must also bear in mind the European Communities regulations. We want to listen to all of the views possible on the area of the validity of these gift cards. I am anxious to progress the scheme under the consumer rights Bill but we have to also take in to account the European Union legislative proposals for the directive on consumer contracts for the supply of digital content and consumer contracts for online services and other digital sales of goods. In this situation I say to the Deputy that we will take all views on board and listen to all sides here. We have the draft consumer rights Bill and obviously we want to be balanced to ensure we have the rights of the customers and businesses.

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