Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 144: To ask the Minister for Finance if he has satisfied himself that the Life Assurance Directive 2002/83/EC and the Insurance Intermediaries Directive 2002/92/EC have been correctly transposed into law; if he has had communications from the Commission in relation to the manner of transposition of either Directive; if further action will be necessary or appropriate; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24092/06]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Life Assurance Directive 2002/83/EC is effectively a consolidation of Directive 79/267/EEC (First Life Directive), Directive 90/619/EEC (Second Life Directive) and Directive 92/96/EEC (Third Life Directive). The original Directives were transposed into law by the European Communities (Life Assurance) Regulations, 1984 (S.I. No. 57 of 1984) and by the European Communities (Life Assurance) Framework Regulations, 1994 (S.I. No. 360 of 1994). Therefore, no further transposition was required for the provisions of the early Directives that were consolidated into Directive 2002/83/EC because these already existed in Irish law. However, Directive 2002/83/EC contained new updated solvency requirements and these were transposed by the European Communities (Life Assurance) Framework (Amendment No. 2) Regulations 2004 (S.I. No. 729 of 2004). My Department is not aware of any problems with the transposition of the Life Assurance Directive.

In May this year, the Commission was in touch with my Department seeking certain details about the transposition process. My Department provided the details required to the satisfaction of the Commission. The Insurance Mediation Directive (2002/92/EC) was transposed into Irish law on 13 January 2005 by way of Statutory Instrument No. 13 of 2005. A number of representations were subsequently made to my Department in relation to certain technical drafting issues arising from the transposition of the Directive. These have been examined carefully by my Department in consultation with industry representatives and I expect to be in a position to bring forward revised Regulations shortly.

In November 2005, the Department received a query in quite general terms from the European Commission regarding the way in which we had transposed the IMD. The Department replied that Ireland had met the transposition deadline but that the domestic industry had subsequently identified some technical difficulties with our transposing legislation, that we had been in consultation with them with a view to resolving these difficulties and that this was likely to necessitate an amendment to our original transposing S.I. In response the Commission asked to be kept informed of developments.

In April 2006 we received a further letter from the Commission asking us to clarify certain issues in our original transposing Regulations. These queries were of a routine nature and, indeed, referred to some of the issues which were identified in the consultation exercise and which it is intended to address in the revised Regulations.