Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will reiterate some of what Deputy Gould has said in the sense that it is very difficult to talk about consumer protections while not talking about the necessary mitigations and protections and, possibly, if we are talking about energy suppliers, windfall taxes. I will put it as simply as that. While we accept that Government has done some things and cannot do everything, we will all accept there is more that needs to be done, given the condition in which people find themselves at present. They are under severe pressure.

I absolutely welcome this legislation. Whatever protections we put in place for consumers and whatever we do to increase the powers of the CCPC will fade into nothing unless, as Deputy O'Reilly said, we provide the resources to the CCPC. Otherwise, it will be incapable of doing what needs done.

With regard to dealing with the cost-of-living crisis, most of us will have seen on "Claire Byrne Live" people looking at their digital content, streaming apps in particular. We all know that certain people come with technical proficiency and others do not. We may need a service for a two- to three-week period. We have seen many people who sign up to something thinking they can easily desist before the first payment comes out. However, they will either forget or find it incredibly difficult to do so.

We will probably need a greater suite of tools to deal with such. Anybody who watched that show will have seen that people had forgotten how many streaming services and apps they had signed up to. Some of the apps made it very difficult, especially for those who did not have the necessary level of technical proficiency, willpower or the time to chase them down.

We all know there are certain things we cannot avoid.

I accept that people are making difficult decisions regarding how much heating they pay for. People need food and heating. We all need the basic necessary requirements. Some of these digital services obviously do not fit in that context. We must therefore ensure we have a sufficient level of protection in this regard, particularly for those vulnerable people who may accidentally sign up to these services. It can be easy to do that, but a hell of a lot more difficult to withdraw from them. We must explore this issue.

If we are going to talk about consumer protections and so on, whether organisations, community organisations or businesses, one issue not dealt with by the Minister of State's Department, or other Departments, is insurance. We must do so. I am talking specifically about public liability insurance. This issue is on my mind because I attended a local residents association meeting last night. A considerable amount of time at that meeting was taken up discussing the fact that an estate in Dundalk, the one where I live, is looking at paying a public liability insurance bill of about €3,400. This is utterly ridiculous. The development group-residents association is a custodian of a field. It is one of these unintended consequences that sometimes occur in developments. The group, alongside other parties, has done a significant amount of necessary work in the estate, tasks from which the local council and other State agencies have sometimes stepped back. This issue must be dealt with in some shape or form because the current position is utterly unworkable. I noted previously that a community centre in Dundalk was being charged €12,000 for an insurance premium. Obviously, in some cases, claims that have been submitted are being dealt with. I am not going to get into whether those claims are spurious. The Government has taken certain actions in that regard. There have, however, been failings in the sense that we still do not have that piece of work complete. I know this relates to the portfolio of the Minister for Justice but this duty of care issue must be addressed.

I may have digressed in raising this matter, and it is not the first time I have done that. I apologise but I believe these are issues that must be dealt with and we are talking about consumer protection. We must ensure the necessary resourcing is available for the CCPC. There must also be extra powers for ComReg whose representatives I intend to meet soon. Significant legislation relate to ComReg and we must ensure it has the necessary powers to bring firms to book, particularly communications companies and possibly certain telecommunications operators. We must ensure they are offering the services people require. We must ensure all the due diligence is done.

We need to do a specific piece of work to ensure we have covered all that needs to be covered regarding the online realm, including digital services and apps. I welcome that we are dealing with spurious reviews, which is a subject that has been talked about. Other issues, such as online scams, are also worrying people. I am aware that work is being done on best practice and ensuring everybody is informed about maintaining digital hygiene at the best level possible. Cybersecurity has been given a greater level of resourcing but that adds to the difficulties with apps and people trying to remove themselves from payments, etc. A great deal of due diligence must be done to ensure we are adding all the protections necessary for people.

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