Vol. 519 No. 2
84 Mr. Broughan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the programme, if any, she will undertake in 2001 in respect of the introduction of the euro to protect consumers from companies which round up prices, as occurred during the introduction of decimalisation. [13431/00]
There is an EU legal framework for the use of the euro. The directly applicable EU law relating to the core of the Deputy's question is Council Regulation (EC) No. 1103/97 of 17 June 1997 which lays down rules for conver sion between national currencies and the euro, including rounding rules. Article 4 of that regulation expressly provides that conversion rates shall be adopted with six significant figures and that the conversion rates shall not be rounded or truncated when making conversions.
In addition to these legal requirements, the right of consumers not to be overcharged for goods and services further is being safeguarded through ensuring that businesses sign up to either the national code of practice on dual display of prices, which I launched on 9 June 1999, or to business organisations' own codes, provided that those codes have been approved by the Director of Consumer Affairs. Subscribers to the national code and to approved codes commit themselves to carrying out the changeover fairly and to seeking no advantage from the conversion. To date, the director has approved codes for IBEC, the Irish Petroleum Industry Association and the Booksellers Association of Great Britain and Ireland (Irish branch).
Subscribers to either the national code or to approved codes will be entitled to display a logo. Display of the logo will inform consumers that the subscribers in question have agreed to undertake the commitments under the national code or approved codes, and the logo will include a contact point for use by consumers in any case where they consider that the commitments are not being adhered to.
Awareness of and familiarisation with the euro will help consumers to be vigilant. This is one of the key objectives of the European Consumer Centre, ECC, O'Connell Street, Dublin, which is co-funded by the Director of Consumer Affairs and the European Commission. In June 1999, the ECC published a free guide, entitled Consumer's Guide. The guide aims to raise awareness among the public of some of the practical aspects of the changeover affecting consumers, including buying goods and services, payment of social welfare benefits, wages, banking services, pensions, insurance and travel. The guide was distributed nationwide through, for example, consumer information centres and money advice bureaux. As the first run, 15,000 copies, has been exhausted, the guide has now been reprinted. In addition, the ECC recently published a shorter guide to the euro which is also free of charge and which is aimed at helping older consumers in particular to become familiar with the new currency. This information leaflet features some typical grocery items with prices in euro as well as in Irish pounds, and it sets out the EU rules to which I have referred for carrying out conversions between Irish pounds and the euro.
Both publications are available, too, on the ECC's website, the address of which is: www.ecic.ie
