Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 10 February 2022
26. Deputy Cormac Devlin asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he will be introducing new measures to enhance consumer protections; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6829/22]
View answerI intend, subject to Government approval, to introduce new and enhanced consumer protections measures shortly with the publication of the Consumer Rights Bill 2022 and its introduction into the Houses.
The purpose of this Bill is to give effect to a number of EU consumer rights Directives, including:
1. Directive 2019/770 on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content and digital services;
2. Directive 2019/771 on certain aspects concerning contracts for the sale of goods; and
3. the main provisions of Directive 2019/2161 on the better enforcement and modernisation of Union consumer protection rules.
The Bill will also consolidate, modernise and enhance domestic consumer contract law by bringing existing provisions together in a single enactment and represents the biggest overhaul of consumer rights legislation in over 40 years..
The main provisions of the Bill will include:
- rights and remedies in consumer contracts for the sale of goods;
- rights and remedies in consumer contracts for the supply of digital content and digital services;
- rights and remedies in consumer contracts for non-digital services;
- consumer information and cancellation rights;
- unfair terms in consumer contracts;
- unfair commercial practices; and
- enhanced enforcement measures available to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC).
Services account for an increasingly large part of consumer activity and expenditure. The rights of consumers in respect of service contracts will be expanded and a scheme of statutory remedies will be established to apply where a service does not conform to these rights.
Consumer contracts for the supply of digital content and digital services have not previously been the subject of specific statutory regulation. While digital content supplied in tangible form such as a cd or dvd is subject to the rights and remedies in current legislation, digital content supplied, as is now mainly the case, in intangible form, through downloads, streaming or other means is not currently subject to similar statutory regulation.
Substantial amendments will be made to the existing provisions on consumer information and cancellation rights due to the transposition of Directive 2019/2161.
Changes will be made to the current unfair terms in consumer contracts legislation, to include:
- extending the scope of the unfair terms provisions;
- strengthening the transparency requirements that apply to contract terms;
- narrowing the exemption from assessment for unfairness of core contract terms, and
- expanding the ‘grey list’ of consumer contract terms presumed unfair and introducing a ‘blacklist’ of terms that are automatically unfair.
Various amendments will be made to the Consumer Protection Act 2007 required to update the law on unfair commercial practices as included in Directive 2019/2161. These amendments will extend and enhance the enforcement measures available to the CCPC and ComReg.
