Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is an imbalance in consumer rights legislation between goods and services, and I genuinely hope the Consumer Rights Bill 2022 will see that rebalanced. The Bill increases the statutory rights of consumers in relation to contracts for the sale of goods and the supply of digital content, and it gives more power to the regulator, the CCPC. I hope that with these increased powers for the CCPC, we will see increased resources. The Minister of State will not be surprised to hear me say this as I have said repeatedly that all the rights in the world are no use without the regulator having sufficient firepower to be able to exercise them. Only recently, we had the Competition (Amendment) Bill, which also seeks to give the CCPC additional powers. That Bill seeks to provide for a system of non-criminal enforcement of certain provisions of competition law. Naturally, the passing of both Bills will necessitate additional resources, both human and financial, for the CCPC.

As with the competition Bill, the Consumer Rights Bill transposes EU legislation into Irish law. The Minister of State, Deputy Troy, previously remarked that this Bill is one of the biggest overhauls of consumer law in the State in decades. I wholeheartedly agree with him, and anyone who has familiarised themselves with the over 160 pages of the Bill will probably agree too. As the Minister of State said, fair play to the officials in his Department, and to the Minister of State himself, because this is a highly technical piece of legislation and it is clear that a huge amount of work has gone into it.

The legislation seeks to enshrine a whole raft of consumer-friendly rules into Irish law. This, it is hoped, will make seeking redress easier in the future. Importantly, it also amends the law on unfair terms in contracts between consumers and traders. I am sure that many of our offices have been contacted by constituents who have been the victims of unfair terms and conditions in contracts. We all know the offer is always in big letters but people would need a magnifying glass to read the terms and conditions. Indeed, we ourselves may have even been the victim of these unfair contract terms. The reality is many of the laws in place to protect Irish consumers were drawn up before the age of the Internet. Naturally, this means there are many practices and terms and conditions in place in the online world which are totally unacceptable in the real or non-virtual world. This has left customers with little or no protection and, naturally, it has also left them exhausted and frustrated when they have sought a refund, replacement or repair for a product or service purchased.

If I walk over to a shop and buy a desk lamp, and it fails or breaks shortly after purchase, I have certain rights to a refund, a repair or a replacement. However, in the online world, I do not have the same rights if I spend money on a digital product as if I buy that physical desk lamp in a shop. We know that vulnerable people can be and are targeted all of the time, including people like me who are not digital natives and who are not brilliant with technology. This is designed to protect them, which is very welcome. Essentially, the change the Bill seeks is to give consumers the same rights and protections over digital content and digital services, such as streaming, downloads and cloud products, as they have currently with any other products or services.

Therefore, I think we can all see the importance and scale of this Bill. It is a significant overhaul of consumer law. However, it is not before time. It is not today or yesterday that customers began purchasing products or services online. Thankfully, the Bill will see more redress options put on the table for consumers. They will be entitled to agree a price reduction on faulty goods and they will be entitled to withhold payment for goods partially paid for if they are not satisfied with the quality of the item received.

The Bill also makes it clear that any form of redress must be free of charge and must be carried out as soon as possible. Again, this is important because a time lag on something like this can leave people frustrated. What happens in real life is that people spend a lot of time trying to deal with it and in the end they just throw their hands in the air and say they will leave it. Of course, that is not good, so the idea that it will be carried out as soon as possible is very welcome.

The Bill covers digital content and digital services, such as streaming, downloads and cloud products, and the new digital rights will include a right to full refund, exchange or repair when a good or service is not as described or not fit for purpose. As we will see from Chapter 3, Part 2, remedies in sales contracts are set down as a short-term right to terminate the sales contract; a right to repair or replacement of the goods; a right to a proportionate reduction in the price and to final termination of the sales contract; reimbursement within 14 days by the trader, using the same means of payment and without the imposition of any fees; and a general right to withhold payment where the trader fails to deliver goods in conformity with the sales contract. Businesses will also be required to clearly set out a description of the goods or services being provided, the total price of the item and the cost of delivery before entering into a contract with a consumer. I know this will come as good news to people who have been stung with additional charges which were never foreseen when the product was purchased. This is often particularly the case in terms of additional charges for delivery.

An important aspect of the Bill is that it will see a legislative crackdown on companies leaving fake reviews of their own products or services, or fake reviews of a competitor’s products or services. Hardly a week goes by where we do not hear of someone who has fallen victim to a fake review. There have been several high-profile cases in the past.

I will not name anyone but we all know who we are talking about. If one gets an advertisement for a face cream purporting to be from someone whose age one knows but whom one thinks looks very young, one can be duped into believing that person is backing the product and that somehow one is buying into that person's beauty regime or, indeed, one may pay the money and not get the goods or service. Those people currently have very little opportunity for redress. This in turn causes customers to suspect nearly every company’s reviews. The knock-on consequence for those companies that do not engage in this process is that nobody believes the review online. A genuine review gets ignored in the same way as a fake review does. This is very unfair to those companies that do not engage in this currently immoral but soon to be, I hope, illegal practice. Decent companies that are above board are put at a commercial disadvantage as a result. Thankfully, companies who engage in misleading and aggressive commercial practices, such as fake reviews, could be subject to fines imposed by the courts following enforcement action taken by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC.

Another important aspect of the legislation is that it defines prohibited blacklisted terms and conditions which are automatically regarded as unfair when put in a contract and grey-listed terms and conditions which are presumed to be unfair. Examples of blacklisted terms and conditions include any condition which allows a trader to unilaterally change the terms of a contract and any provision which would indemnify a trader from harm caused by a product or service. This is extremely important and it is reinforced by the importance of section 134 which provides that a trader must ensure that contract terms are transparent. Without transparency of contract, consumers are again put at a disadvantage.

The legislation is being driven by the fact that oftentimes businesses treat their customers unfairly when things go wrong. This significantly impacts customers, but it also impacts good businesses and puts them at a distinct disadvantage to rogue competitors. It is fair that the playing field be levelled up, although I should probably be wary of speaking about levelling anything given the interview in the media today.

I am glad to support this Bill and I will work collaboratively with the Minister of State with regard to amendments on Committee Stage and on Report Stage. Importantly, the Bill will ensure that in cases where someone cannot contact a trader and it is not already covered by a sectoral regulator, the CCPC will have the power to intervene to force the trader to engage with its consumer.

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