Michael Ahern (Cork East, Fianna Fail)

The purpose of these amendments is to allow the Minister to make regulations under this Act for the purpose of implementing the prospectus Directive and prospectus regulation. Section 42 provides for penalties on convictions on indictment for offences under Irish prospectus law. This would cover a situation where securities are offered to the public or listed without issuing a prospectus. Again, like the market abuse transposing regulations I spoke about earlier, it had been intended to make these regulations solely under the European Communities Act 1972. However, section 3(3) of that Act states that regulations under section 3 shall not create an indictable offence. Consequently, for legal certainty, it is proposed to use the powers under the new section 42 and under the European Communities Act 1972 to transpose the prospectus directive. I commend these amendments to the House.