The Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Heather Humphreys, launched a public consultation on gift voucher fees. This follows her announcement on June 12th that the Government had approved the General Scheme of the Unfair Contract Terms (Gift Vouchers) Bill 2018, which proposes a minimum lifespan of five years for gift vouchers.
In addition to the requirement for gift vouchers to be valid for at least five years, the Bill proposes that the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation will have power to make Regulations to set fees for the issue and replacement of gift vouchers, and for inactive balances on gift vouchers. These are commonly referred to as dormancy or maintenance fees.
The purpose of the public consultation is to gather information and views on gift voucher fees to assist the Minister in deciding on the level of fees, if any, that should apply. The first part of the Consultation Paper seeks the inputs of consumers on gift voucher fees and the second part seeks the inputs of businesses.
Commenting on the General Scheme of the Bill, Minister Humphreys said:
Plenty of consumers buy gift vouchers and plenty of businesses sell them, but without laws to regulate them, this has been a grey area for too long. These proposals are about making things black and white.
Launching the public consultation, she said:
In some cases, fees of up to €3 per month are applied to gift vouchers after a year. In effect, this means that a voucher for €25 can be worthless after 20 months. It seems clear that many consumers who receive gift vouchers are not aware of these fees.
Understandably, consumers feel they should be able to redeem gift vouchers at their full face value, however, the businesses applying these fees claim that they are essential to meet the costs involved.
I want to get the widest possible range of views on these issues. I would urge consumers, businesses and anyone else with an interest in this matter to respond to the consultation by the closing date of 31 August 2018.