The Euro Changeover Board of Ireland was established by Mr Charlie McCreevy TD, Minister for Finance, on 5 May 1998. It has two basic tasks: to oversee the detailed implementation of the changeover to the euro and to provide public and consumer information. The Board includes representatives from a wide range of organisations across Irish society. Its Chairperson and Secretariat are provided by the Department of Finance.

This Report covers the Board's second year of operation, that is from 1 May 1999 to 30 April 2000. During this period, on the implementation side the focus of the Board's activities was the production of The Introduction of the Euro: Ireland's Cash Changeover Plan for 2002. The Plan was launched on 19 April 2000 and sets out how the changeover to euro notes and coins from 1 January 2002 will be effected. It recommends that at midnight on Saturday 9 February 2002, legal tender status should be withdrawn from Irish notes and coins, so ending the period during which euro notes and coins and Irish notes and coins will be in circulation together.

As regards public information, the Board co-ordinates the National Information Programme, which comprises its own public information activities, the Forfás EMU Business Awareness Campaign, and a Programme of support for Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) administered by the Board. The National Information Programme is part-funded by the European Union.

For the start of the year under review, the Board commissioned a survey to determine public awareness levels after the widespread public information activity that followed the launch of the euro. The survey indicated that, for the general public, the issue would be to try to maintain awareness and develop it, especially in helping people build a scale of values for themselves in euro; for groups at risk of low awareness, the issue would be to try to ensure that information reached them and was in appropriate form. Dual display of prices provides the most pervasive source of euro values for the general public, and its use has been growing; the Board also ran two outdoor poster campaigns reinforcing euro values for items of income, savings and expenditure. The Board made its information materials widely available at post offices, social welfare offices, centres for older people, Citizens Information Centres and Money Advice and Budgeting Centres, as well as providing special materials for people with literacy difficulties in co-operation with the National Adult Literacy Agency and the City of Dublin VEC. The Board continued its information services via its LoCall helpline and Aertel page and further developed its website. Close links were maintained with the Forfás EMU Business Awareness Campaign, while 14 organisations received part-funding under the Board's 1999 NGO Programme for a range of information activities on the euro.

The Board expanded its Consultative Panel of organisations representing people likely to have special needs in the changeover to the euro. The Board also developed its links with the education sector, launching a new interactive website for schools, circulating an information pack to primary and post-primary schools, and co-operating with the Department of Education and Science in the preparation of subject guides on the euro for the start of the 2000/2001 school year. The Board also continued to provide materials in Irish. The Board held a number of press launches during the year, and staff gave interviews with television, radio and print media. Stands were taken at several major exhibitions and a number of talks and presentations were made at local level.

In summary, the Board has built successfully on the solid foundation laid down in its first year, has developed extensive networks for the distribution of information and has produced a Plan to facilitate a smooth changeover to euro cash from 1 January 2002. The Board expresses its thanks to all who have helped in its activities to date and looks forward to their continuing cooperation in the period from now to the end of the changeover.

Appendixes to the Report list the members of the Board, its Sub-Committees, Working Group, Consultative Panel and Secretariat; set out the Assignment Agreement between the European Commission and Ireland regarding copyright in the common face of euro coins; list the recipients of funding under the NGO Programme for 1999; provide a financial statement; and give statistics on distribution of information material.

PART I: Introduction and Establishment, Tasks and Membership of the Board etc.