Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

The background to the amendment to section 2(5) is intended to clarify that the provisions of Part 3 of the Bill on unfair, misleading, aggressive and prohibited commercial practices apply to commercial practices relating to the hallmarking of articles of precious metal.

Article 3.10 of the unfair commercial practices directive states, "This Directive shall not apply to the application of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of Member States relating to the certification and indication of the standard of fineness of articles of precious metal." We have supported this provision in the directive as there were concerns that due to the maximum harmonisation of the directive, its application to national hallmarking laws might mean we could no longer require articles of precious metal imported from member states to bear a mark providing information equivalent to that provided by hallmarks approved under domestic legislation. While we had concerns about the possible implications of the directive for hallmarking controls, we had no wish to exclude unfair, misleading or aggressive practices relating to the hallmarking of precious metals from its provisions and those of this Bill.

The purchase of gold, silver or platinum items are among the most significant purchases consumers make and it is important that the protections of Part 3 of the Bill apply to them. I propose this amendment to remove any doubt arising from Article 3.10 of the directive that the Bill's provisions on unfair, misleading and aggressive practices might not apply to the standard of fineness of articles of precious metal.

The amendment proposed to section 41(2) qualifies the application of that subsection to take account of the new section inserted at section 95. The amendment at section 2(5) is also subject to this new section.

Section 95 deals with amendments required to sections 5 and 6 and the Hallmarking Act 1981 as a consequence of the repeal of the Merchandise Marks Act 1887 by this Bill. Section 5 of the Hallmarking Act provides that specified misdescriptions of articles of precious metal are offences under the Merchandise Marks Act 1887. Section 6 lists a number of permissible descriptions of these articles to which section 5 does not apply. In view of the repeals of the Merchandise Marks Act 1887, it is necessary to re-enact these provisions within the framework of the Consumer Protection Bill, which is what section 95 does. Apart from changes required by the differences in terminology between the Merchandise Marks Act and this Bill, it does not make any substantive changes to sections 5 and 6 of the Hallmarking Act. The amendments are consequential on the repeal of the Act of 1887.