Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Question 132: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the reason, in transposing the EC Unit Prices Directive (98/6/EC) into Irish law, the Government did not voluntarily extend its provisions to cover services as several other EU Member States have done according to the European Commission, thereby allowing it to cover services such as air fares. [19400/07]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Directive 98/6/EC on consumer protection in the indication of prices of products offered to consumers was transposed into Irish law by way of the European Communities (Requirements to Indicate Product Prices) Regulations 2002 (Statutory Instrument No. 639 of 2002). The aim of the Directive is to ensure that consumers have unambiguous indications as to the price of products. This is done by requiring traders to show the final selling price and the unit price of products. The final selling price is defined as the final price inclusive of VAT and all other taxes. The unit price is the price per kilo or litre (or square or cubic kilo or litre as appropriate). The Directive is enforced by the National Consumer Agency.

The Directive does not apply to services. Though the requirement to indicate the selling and unit price of products is of general application, article 3(2) of the Directive allows member states to derogate from this obligation in the case, among other things, of products supplied in the course of a service. According to a study undertaken for the European Commission, ten of the then fifteen member states, including Ireland, opted to avail of this derogation.

As the Directive is a minimum harmonisation measure, member states had discretion to apply the domestic legislative provisions transposing the Directive to services. According to the European Commission's Communication on the Implementation of the Directive, four of the fifteen member states at the time of the adoption of the Directive applied their transposition measures to services as have eight of the member states that have joined the European Union since 2004. There is no information available on whether such extensions applied to all services or required the indication of both the unit and the selling price.

As regards air fares, the Deputy will be aware that the Consumer Information (Advertisements for Airfares) Order 2000 (Statutory Instrument No. 468 of 2000) requires advertisements for airfares to state clearly (a) the total price payable for the airfare as one single amount and (b) where applicable, and separately, the monetary amount of any charge to be imposed in respect of the method of payment of the airfare. I propose to amend the Order to revoke the requirement relating to the separate indication of charges for payment methods in the light of the proposed commencement in October of section 48 (regarding the prohibition of surcharges where one method of payment is chosen in preference to another) and section 49 (requiring that surcharges, where otherwise permissible, must be stated as part of the price of a good or service) of the Consumer Protection Act. The Consumer Protection Act has also remedied the previous problem whereby criminal proceedings in relation to advertising orders, such as the Airfares Order, made under the Consumer Information Act 1978 could be taken only against the publisher of an advertisement and not against the person who had caused it to be published.

I am aware that a proposed European Union Regulation on Common Rules for the Operation of Air Transport Services published in July 2006 includes a provision on price transparency in air fares. The Consumer Information (Advertisements for Airfares) Order 2000 will be kept under review in the light of the progress of this provision of the proposed Regulation.