Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We are delighted to have the Minister back in the House. As she is aware, Fianna Fáil welcomes the Bill. We have discussed it with her on a number of occasions. We broadly welcome the provisions in the Bill, which are similar those of the gift card and gift voucher Bill for which my colleague, Deputy Niall Collins, sought cross-party support in mid-2017.

The gift voucher market in Ireland is sizeable, worth in excess of €600 million in sales. A large proportion of the market is subject to direct consumer protection regulation. In its draft Bill, Fianna Fáil rightly distinguished between, on the one hand, the large, unregulated element of the market that typically includes store-branded gift vouchers and shopping vouchers and, on the other, the smaller, highly regulated e-money sector. The latter sector is regulated under various EU directives including electronic money directives, anti-money laundering directives and unfair contract term directives. These directives provide strong consumer protection provisions, including obligations regarding transparency, non-application of expiry dates on products, protection of client funds in safeguarding accounts to protect voucher holders in the event of an issuer going out of business, and provisions for application of fees.

Through its own research into the gift voucher market in Ireland, and based on outputs by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation, following its consultation process on the subject, Fianna Fáil acknowledges the substantially different business models that apply to the regulated gift voucher sector and its unregulated equivalent. The regulated sector incurs vast increased costs of operation due to the regulatory mandates that apply and, consequentially, has a justifiable set of income streams, including fees, to meet these high costs. Fianna Fáil also observes that the gift voucher market is highly competitive, with a wide range of consumer choice on offer.

The Bill adopts features of the European electronic money directive and other directives and applies them to the full gift voucher market in Ireland. These features include a control on the application of expiry dates and the introduction of obligatory transparency, among other features. While these provisions do not go as far as the protection offered by products, such as One4All, which are regulated under EU directives, they are welcome improvements in consumer protection for currently unregulated products. We urge the Government to be cautious on the application of the Bill to the current regulated gift voucher sector on the basis that it introduces some risk of regulatory misalignment and conflict with superior EU law. However, as the Minister acknowledged, we are happy to support the Bill. She indicated that she is seeking advice on that matter and we will see what transpires in that regard.

The legislation, without amendment, will ensure that consumers can select gift voucher products of their choice with full access to the terms and conditions and be sure there is a reasonable period under which the products will not expire, resulting in a loss of funds. As stated, we do not support any amendment which seeks to impose unnecessary controls on pricing in the sector. This is not required because the market is highly fragmented with wide consumer choice and, with increased protections of transparency, consumers can select their product of choice safely in the knowledge of the terms and conditions. Imposition of price controls would introduce less choice for the consumer and would affect the industry’s ability to innovate and grow, to the detriment of the consumer.

As noted, Deputy Niall Collins has done much work on the issue and we are happy with the bulk and drive of the Bill. We are not keen to seek many amendments, although I note that the Minister is awaiting legal advice on one aspect, as she mentioned, and I urge caution in that regard.