Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Deputy Butler. Deputy Niall Collins brought forward a similar Private Members' Bill which the business, enterprise and innovation committee spent much time going through. Several amendments were made to it which were all agreed unanimously by the committee. Here we are again, however, with this Bill. There is a sense of déjà vubecause I had a Bill on ticket touting and we will be debating a Government Bill on this later. My Bill, approved by the business, enterprise and innovation committee, was left stuck in the committee waiting for a money message, although the issue in question needed to be tackled urgently. Obviously, the wrong name was on that Bill in the same way that Deputy Niall Collins’s name was on the Bill similar to this.

The Government’s Bill is welcome and Sinn Féin will be supporting it. Gift vouchers can be a source of great frustration for consumers when the find they have expired or have been charged fees for not using them. The lack of regulation in this area has left consumers exposed. The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission received 1,100 complaints about gift vouchers over the past several years, showing the need for urgent action. Accordingly, Sinn Féin is happy to support the Bill.

The Bill aims to provide for a five-year expiry period for gift vouchers; prohibit terms on gift voucher contracts which require gift vouchers to be spent on single transactions; ban conditions which would impose a fee for changing the name of a recipient on a gift voucher; and provide for the publication of guidelines by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission on gift vouchers.

While these are all welcome changes, I note the absence in the legislation for the regulation of dormancy fees on gift vouchers. The Oireachtas Library and Research Service prepared a paper on the Bill, focusing on this specific issue. It highlighted the fact that the state of New South Wales in Australia has a law which bans post-purchase fees, including activation, account-keeping, balance inquiry and telephone inquiry fees, as well as fees applied when a card is inactive or not used. The latter are sometimes called dormancy or inactivity fees. In Ontario, businesses are not allowed to charge dormancy fees or activation fees. These dormancy fees can be a big issue for many consumers as they eat away at the monetary value of the vouchers without consumers knowing. Will the Minister of State provide more clarity as to what exactly the current position is on dormancy fees? What impact did lobbying from gift voucher companies have on the decision to omit these fees from the legislation?

My party colleague, Senator Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, raised the issue of experience vouchers with the Minister in the Seanad. It is important we discuss how this legislation will affect gift vouchers given for experiences for, say, a hot air balloon ride, a bungee jump, adventure sports or race car driving. These vouchers are sold as an experience with no price on them which makes them popular as an ideal gift. However, the cost of these activities could change dramatically over the proposed new five-year expiry period. For example, a voucher for a hot air balloon experience could be purchased now for €300 with a five-year limit in force. If the price of insurance or gas went up substantially in that timeframe, the profit margin of the company would be eliminated.

As we know, the problem of escalating insurance costs is going unaddressed by the Government. It does not seem to have any interest in this issue of serious concern to most, if not all, businesses across the State. Recently I met with stakeholders who said a tsunami is coming as businesses will not be able to afford to pay for their insurance coverage soon.

It is important that the Bill’s provisions are enacted as soon as possible. There should be more co-operation between the Government and the Opposition on bringing forward Bills which cover the same issues. Such co-operation would lead to a quicker legislative process.

I thank the Minister for bringing forward the Bill. I hope it will bring benefits to consumers across the whole of Ireland.

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