Vol. 429 No. 3
75 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for Finance his views on the need to remove existing obstacles in Irish law to the free use of the ECU as a currency of transaction in the areas of legal proceedings, accounts, payment of wages and salaries, insurance and public procurement; and if it is Government policy to remove these obstacles.
Section 25 of the Central Bank Act, 1989, allows payments, contracts etc. to be expressed in foreign currency, including ECUs, if the parties involved agree. Payments to the Exchequer from Brussels, for example, are denominated in ECUs.
However the ECU is not legal tender at present. The Treaty on European Union does provide for the introduction of the ECU as a single European currency, but the earliest that this can be introduced, under the terms of the Treaty, is 1997.
