S.I. No. 365/1980:

EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (PAINTS, ETC.) (CLASSIFICATION, PACKAGING AND LABELLING) REGULATIONS, 1980.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (PAINTS, ETC.) (CLASSIFICATION, PACKAGING AND LABELLING) REGULATIONS, 1980.

I, GENE FITZGERALD, Minister for Labour, in exercise of the powers conferred on me by section 3 of the European Communities Act, 1972 (No. 27 of 1972), and for the purposes of giving effect to Council Directive No. 77/728/EEC of 7 November, 1977⁽¹⁾ hereby make the following Regulations:

⁽¹⁾OJ No. L 303 of 28/11/77, p. 23-32.

1. These Regulations may be cited as the European Communities (Paints, etc.) (Classification, Packaging and Labelling) Regulations, 1980.

2. These Regulations shall come into operation on the 1st day of January, 1981.

3. (1) In these Regulations--

"authorised officer" means a person appointed by the Minister to be an authorised officer for the purposes of these Regulations;

"the Directive" means Council Directive No. 77/728/EEC of 7 November, 1977;

"the Minister" means the Minister for Labour.

(2) A word or expression that is used in these Regulations and is also used in the Directive shall, unless the contrary intention appears, have in these Regulations the same meaning that it has in the Directive.

4. A person shall not place on the market preparations referred to in Article 1 of the Directive unless the preparations and their packaging comply with the provisions of the Directive.

5. A package shall be deemed not to have complied with the provisions of Article 6 of the Directive unless the English language is employed in satisfying in relation to the package the labelling requirements of that Article.

6. (1) An authorised officer may at all reasonable times enter--

( a ) any premises which he has reasonable grounds for believing to be being used for the purposes of packing, or storing in packages, preparations referred to in Article 1 of the Directive, or

( b ) any railway waggon, vehicle, ship, vessel or aircraft in which he has reasonable grounds for believing that packages containing preparations referred to in Article 1 of the Directive are being either transported or kept for the purpose of being placed on the market,

and there or at any other place--

(i) make such examinations, tests and inspections, and

(ii) take such reasonable samples of any packages containing preparations referred to in Article 1 of the Directive,

as he may consider reasonable for the purposes of these Regulations and the Council Directive.

(2) A person shall not obstruct or interfere with an authorised officer in the course of exercising a power conferred on him by these Regulations.

(3) An authorised officer shall be furnished with a warrant of his appointment as an authorised officer and when exercising any power conferred on an authorised officer by these Regulations shall, if requested by any person affected, produce the warrant to that person.

7. A person who contravenes a provision of these Regulations shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £500.

8. An offence under these Regulations may be prosecuted by the Minister.

9. Where an offence under these Regulations is committed by a body corporate and the offence is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to have been attributable to any neglect on the part of, any person who, when the offence was committed, was a director, member of the committee of management or other controlling authority of the body concerned, or the manager, secretary or other officer of the body, that person shall also be deemed to have committed the offence and may be proceeded against and punished accordingly.

GIVEN under my Official Seal, this 3rd day of December, 1980.

GENE FITZGERALD,

Minister for Labour.

EXPLANATORY NOTE.

These regulations give effect to Council Directive No. 77/728/EEC of 7 November, 1977. The regulations require suppliers to ensure that preparations listed in Article 1 of the Directive are not placed on the market unless the preparations and their packaging comply with the provisions of the Directive.