I move amendment No. 88:
In page 57, subsection (3) (a), line 16, before "any" to insert "at".
This is a very straightforward amendment, whose purpose is simply to correct a typographical error in section 58 (3) (a).
SECTION 58.
Amendment agreed to.
Question proposed: "That section 58, as amended, stand part of the Bill".
Am I to understand that this is the main section under which the Minister will be enforcing the obligations under this part or is it likely that the obligations created by Chapter 1, Part IV, will be enforced on foot of misdemeanours or failures to comply emerging in the report of a liquidator or a receiver of a company? If we are relying on section 58 as the main method it is a very heavy handed method of enforcing what may be rather minor infractions. If not, should there not be an obligation given to the director of the companies office to prosecute on his own without reference to the Minister for some of these more minor infractions such as not providing information in time and so on? If that type of small offence is going to have to wait for an investigation such as would be initiated under section 58 it would not be enforced at all.
The main vehicle of inquiry in these matters will be section 15. Section 58 is supplementary to it and would deal specifically with a more limited field of inquiry and would relate to speculative dealings and options in the company by its directors or their families, notification of shareholdings in the company held by its directors or secretary and notification of shareholdings in a company held by the families of directors or secretaries. This purpose of giving the Minister this power of investigation is, of course, to allow him to establish whether contraventions have occurred and thus to enable him to carry out his powers of prosecution if necessary under the relevant sections of the Bill. The power of investigation is seen as complementary to the Minister's powers of prosecution. A type of investigation being provided for under the present section is much more specific than that envisaged under Part II because it deals only with suspected contraventions in relation to shares or debentures under sections 29, 48 or 56.
I thank the Minister for the information. It seems that section 15 is the relevant section where all of what we have been discussing will be enforced. Under that section, where it appears to the Minister that it is necessary to get certain information, he can go about getting it. The entire enforcement of this whole chapter we have spent the last two hours discussing is now going to hinge on an initiative by the Minister. As he pointed out to us not so long ago, we probably have the entire company law division here with us today and I do not know how many companies we have——
I am afraid I have to disappoint the Deputy, we have only 66.66 per cent of the entire company law division here.
Knowing the people concerned——
There is somebody at home watching the fire.
It may well be that really what we have been doing is passing law that we are not capable of enforcing because the next three or four years of the lives of the people concerned are going to be spent drafting new legislation to comply with further requirements coming from Brussels and the enforcement of the existing legislation is going to be something that they will not be able to do. I wonder if the Minister should not consider passing over some of the responsibility for initiating inquiries in this area to the companies office where they have staff, they have computerised data and they now are required — it would appear to me — under this legislation to report things to the Minister to take action. It would appear to be more sensible, and in line with the sort of provisions we have in regard to criminal law where it is the DPP rather than the Minister who now prosecutes, that the companies office might do this sort of stuff and only have the more serious cases being ones where the Minister should act.
That last point the Deputy made is, in fact, the position because it is only in serious cases that the Minister would intervene either by way of investigation or by way of prosecution. I would point out to the Deputy that section 52 (3) of the Bill, which contains the civil liability for non-disclosure of these matters — the shareholdings and interests of directors and secretaries — is a much more powerful deterrent than either the criminal prosecution or the Ministerial investigation. That arises from the fact that if somebody fails to notify, civilly he does not acquire the shares and he therefore has no title to them, he is not entitled to vote them and he is not entitled to be paid a dividend in respect of them. The position, then, really is as the Deputy summed it up at the end, that the Minister will only intervene to investigate under this section or to prosecute under the others where it is a very serious case and where the party concerned has totally disregarded the fact that he has civil liability, or lack of civil title to enforce his shareholding.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 59 and 60 agreed to.