Legislative Preparations at National Level  

The two Council Regulations which together make up the EU legal framework for the euro have already been described. At national level, the following legislation has been enacted in preparation for the introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999.  

The Central Bank Act, 1998 provides for the compatibility of Irish Central Bank legislation with Articles 107 and 108 of the Maastricht Treaty: these deal, respectively, with the independence of national central banks and with the requirement that national legislation, including cental bank statutes, be compatible with the Treaty and the Statute of the ESCB and the ECB.  

The Finance Act, 1998 (Section 47 and Schedule 2) provides for the taxation changes required for the introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999. (A technical amendment is contained in section 87 of the Finance Act, 1999)

The Economic and Monetary Union Act, 1998 declares that by virtue of Council Regulation (EC) No 974/98, from 1 January 1999 the currency of the State is the euro and the Irish pound is a subdivision of it. The Act also removes incompatibilities between Irish monetary law and the EU legal framework for the use of the euro and gives effect to enabling provisions in that framework, for example in relation to the redenomination into euro of outstanding debt. The Act is also designed to facilitate companies which wish to redenominate and renominalise their capital structure into euro before the final changeover to the euro on 1 January 2002.