Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

180 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE 8. IMPLICATIONS FOR IRELAND Implementing the newDirective into Irish law will require primary legislation and the repeal of the Package Holidays and Travel Trade Act 1995 which implanted Directive 90/314. The opportunity should also be taken to consolidate and simplify the overall legislative framework dealing with the licensing and bonding of tour operators and travel agents in Ireland. This would require the repeal and re-enactment, with necessary modifications, of the Transport [Tour Operators and Travel Agents] Act 1982 whose pre-1990 compulsory bond obligation was used to comply with the outbound-package part of the security guarantee in the 1990 Directive. The plethora of statutory instruments under the 1982 Act 53 . dealing inter alia with licence and application forms, accompanying documents, financial data to be retained, claims information, should also be consolidated and updated. It would make little sense to have the legal framework governing insolvency security for outbound and domestic organisers and now facilitators in different pieces of legislation, especially when the same trader could be both organiser and facilitator. Some administrative streamlining should also be undertaken. The Irish regulator does not currently have responsibility for the TPF, nor does it regulate security for domestic packages. Other public bodies carry out these functions. There has not been any notable criticism of the way the Irish regulator has dealt with the consequences of organiser insolvency. It is not clear whether Ireland will continue with the same formula for determining the size and cost of insolvency security. There may be questions whether the figures of 10% and 4% are now too low, but this will be partly influenced by whether the TPF is adequately refunded. Much of the practical impact of Article 19 for facilitators will depend on the cost of the security they will have to obtain. Existing tour operators and travel agents, who in Ireland as already noted have security guarantees of 10% and 4%, respectively, of their projected licensable turnover, may find that the extra cost required to comply with Article 19 will not be major. To cater for the new regulatory role over facilitators the new legislative framework will have to incorporate new application forms to, among other things, identify the additional information needed to clearly see the turnover from facilitating LTA’s, assuming turnover remains the key to fixing the size of the security. 53 See Commission for Aviation Regulation website, http://www.aviationreg.ie/travel-trade-the-commissions- -role/legislation.151.html, accessed 30.7.2015.