Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House to discuss this legislation. I note there have been some delays and difficulties in getting the Bill to this point and there have been many attempts to legislate on this issue before.

It is important to listen to and understand the perspectives of businesses in regard to legislation that affects them. It is also important to properly resource businesses to equip them to deal with any major legislative change. Equally, it is also important to balance protection of business with protection of the consumer and that is what this Bill aims to do today. It is important the Government stands strong to get this legislation debated, amended, if necessary, and enacted into law. It should not be left to gather dust as the other attempts have been.

As the Minister said, this Bill aims to provide for a five-year expiry period for gift vouchers, prohibit terms in gift voucher contracts which require gift vouchers to be spent in a single transaction, ban terms which impose a fee for changing the name of a recipient on a gift voucher and provide for the publication of guidelines by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission on gift vouchers.

As I said, there is a balance to be struck in terms of authentically engaging with businesses and listening to and addressing their concerns and protecting consumers. I would appreciate if the Minister could outline how many meetings have been held with gift voucher companies in relation to this Bill. Equally, how many meetings have been held with consumer rights groups ? Can the Minister outline what the outcomes of these meetings were, including any major concerns that either party had?

My party colleague, Deputy Quinlivan, tabled a parliamentary question about complaints that have been lodged with the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission from 2014 to 2018 regarding gift vouchers. This is vital information to get a clear picture of where the key stakeholders are with this issue, how prevalent the issue is, what problems are currently affecting consumers and how our current complaints mechanism is addressing these concerns.

The key concern I have from my primary analysis of this legislation is around what will happen in terms of experience vouchers. It is important we discuss how this legislation will affect gift vouchers that are given as experience vouchers, for example, for a hot air balloon ride, a bungee jump, adventure sports, race car driving, etc. The costs of these activities could change dramatically over the proposed five-year period. For example, if a voucher for a hot air balloon experience is purchased now for €300 and a five-year limit is enforced, and the price of insurance and the gas used, or both, goes up substantially in that timeframe, the profit margin of the company will be eliminated.

As we know, the problem of escalating insurance costs is going unaddressed by this Government and that is of serious concern to most, if not all, businesses operating in the State. It is, therefore, important that this issue is addressed by this Bill. Has this particular issue been considered by the Department?

Another concern I have about the legislation is around dormancy fees. These are fees charged by a company for certain time periods when a voucher is in use.A company can currently deduct an amount of money per year as an administrative charge and when someone goes to use his or her voucher, he or she has less on it than he or she thought. Will dormancy fees be outlawed under this legislation? What about vouchers bought in other jurisdictions with stores here? How will this new law apply to them and will there be a five-year term on these? For example, if one buys a voucher in Spain, in a multinational chain that has stores here, which expiry date will apply?

I would appreciate if the Minister could clarify the points I have raised. Overall this is a good Bill that Sinn Féin can support. The banning of fees for changing a name and the requirement to use a voucher in a single transaction is welcome, and a five-year term seems to strike a fair balance between the rights of consumers and those of businesses. However, the issue of experience vouchers needs to be teased out. The ambiguity of dormancy fees is a concern. We ask the Minister to look at this and, if necessary, we may table an amendment to this effect on Committee Stage. We ask the Minister to work with us on that.