Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 2 Jul 1996

Vol. 467 No. 7

Written Answers. - Casual Trading Laws.

Liam Hyland

Question:

324 Mr. Hyland asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment if his attention has been drawn to the concern of strawberry and other fruit and vegetable producers concerning the new laws on casual trading; and whether traditional roadside trading of fruit producers can continue. [14076/96]

Minister for Enterprise and Employment (Mr. R. Bruton)

The primary purpose of the Casual Trading Act, 1995 is to achieve greater decentralisation, efficiency and flexibility in the regulation of casual trading by the local authorities than was possible under the less flexible regime provided by the Casual Trading Act, 1980. The principle reforms contained in the 1995 Act are as follows:

(1) to devolve the licensing function from the Minister for Enterprise and Employment to the local authorities and to provide for social welfare requirements with respect to the issue of casual trading licences;

(2) to provide for the use of by-laws by the local authorities as the method of regulating and controlling casual trading, thus facilitating greater flexibility and efficiency in regulating casual trading;

(3) to limit the list of casual trading activities excluded from the scope of regulation under the 1980 Act to (i) selling by a licensed auctioneer; (ii) door-to-door selling and (iii) charity sales.

With regard to paragraph (3) above, the 1995 Act removed the exemption in the 1980 Act relating the selling of agricultural and horticultural produce by the producer, thereby making this type of selling subject to regulation. As indicated above the primary purpose of the 1995 Act is to achieve greater decentralisation and in this connection section 2(4) of the Act empowers local authorities to exempt categories of trading previously exempted under the Casual Trading Act, 1980, or to exempt any new categories of trading that they may decide are appropriate for their own areas.