Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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902. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation when the proposed consumer rights Bill will be brought to Second Stage; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13422/16]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I am not in a position at this stage to say when the proposed Consumer Rights Bill referred to in the Deputy’s question will be brought to Second Stage. My predecessor published the draft Scheme of a comprehensive, consolidated Consumer Rights Bill for public consultation in May 2015 and indicated that he hoped to submit the draft Scheme to Government for approval in early 2016. In December 2015, however, the European Commission published legislative proposals for Directives on consumer contracts for the supply of digital content and consumer contracts for the online and other distance sale of goods. The Commission’s proposals overlap very substantially with two of the main parts of the draft Scheme of the Consumer Rights Bill. Discussions on the digital content proposal at working party level have proceeded rapidly with a first reading of the proposal completed by April 2016. At its next meeting on 9 June, the Justice and Home Affairs Council is due to have a policy debate on the digital content proposal with a view to approving the common understanding of basic principles identified during the first reading and to endorsing political guidelines for future work on the proposal.

In this situation, I will have to give serious consideration to whether it would be premature and inadvisable to bring forward a legislative proposal to the Oireachtas when a directly related and fully harmonised legislative proposal is proceeding through the European Union legislative process. I will review the matter and consider how best to proceed in the light of the outcome of the policy debate at the forthcoming meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council.