Notice of the making of this Statutory Instrument was published in

"Iris Oifigiúil" of 5th March, 2010.

I, MARY COUGHLAN, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, in exercise of the powers conferred on me by section 3 of the European Communities Act 1972 (No. 27 of 1972) and for the purpose of giving effect to Council Directive 80/181/EEC of 20 December 1979 ¹ as last amended by Directive 2009/3/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 ² , hereby make the following Regulations:

Citation and Commencement

1. (1) These Regulations may be cited as the European Communities (Units of Measurement) (Amendment) Regulations 2010.

(2) These Regulations are deemed to have come into operation on1 January 2010.

Interpretation

2. In these Regulations-

"Council Directive" means Council Directive 80/181/EEC of 20 December 1979 ¹ as amended by Council Directive 85/1/EEC of 18 December 1984 ³ , Council Directive 89/617/EEC of 27 November 1989 ⁴ , Directive 1999/103/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 24 January 2000 ⁵ and Directive 2009/3/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 2 ;

"Principal Regulations" means the European Communities (Units of Measurement) Regulation 1992 ( S.I. No. 255 of 1992 );

"1998 Regulations" means the European Communities (Units of Measurement) (Amendment) Regulations 1998 ( S.I. No. 510 of 1998 );

"2000 Regulations" means the European Communities (Units of Measurement) (Amendment) Regulations 2000 ( S.I. No. 143 of 2000 );

3. Regulation 4(2)(d) of the Principal Regulations is amended by deleting "until such date as may be specified in regulations under the European Communities Act, 1972 (No. 27 of 1972)".

4. Regulation 7(1)(a) of the Principal Regulations (inserted by Regulation 5 of the 1998 Regulations and last amended by the 2000 Regulations) is amended by deleting "until the 31 December 2009,".

5. Regulation 8(1) of the Principal Regulations is amended by deleting ", whether for trade or for any economic, public health, public safety or administrative purpose in the State".

6. Schedule 1 of the Principal Regulations is amended-

(a) in 1.1, in "Definitions of SI base units", by substituting for the definition of "Unit of thermodynamic temperature" the following:

"The kelvin, unit of thermodynamic temperature, is the fraction 1/273.16 of the thermodynamic temperature of the triple point of water. This definition refers to water having the isotopic composition defined by the following amount-of-substance ratios: 0.000 155 76 mole of 2 H per mole of 1 H, 0.000 379 9 mole of 17 O per mole of 16 O and 0.002 005 2 mole of 18 O per mole of 16 O. (Thirteenth CGPM (1967), resolution 4 and Twenty-third CGPM (2007), resolution 10).",

(b) in 1.1.1, by substituting for the title the following:

"Special name and symbol of the SI derived unit of temperature for expressing Celsius temperature",

(c) by substituting for the title of 1.2 the following:

"SI derived units",

(d) by deleting 1.2.1,

and

(e) by substituting for 1.2.2 and 1.2.3 the following:

"1.2.2. General rule for SI derived units

Units derived coherently from SI base units are given as algebraic expressions in the form of products of powers of the SI base units with a numerical factor equal to 1.

1.2.3 SI derived units with special names and symbols

Units derived from SI base units or supplementary units may be expressed in terms of the units listed in Chapter I.

In particular, derived SI units may be expressed by the special names and symbols given in the above table: for example, the SI unit of dynamic viscosity may be expressed as m-1 . kg . s-1 or N . s . m-2 orPa . s.".

7. Schedule 4 of the Principal Regulations is amended by deleting thesentence, under the Table, commencing "Until the date referred to .".

GIVEN under my Official Seal,

2 March 2010.

MARY COUGHLAN,

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Instrument and does not purport to be a legal interpretation.)

These Regulations are made to give effect to Council Directive No. 2009/3/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on the approximation of the laws of Member States relating to units of measurement.

The main changes in the Regulations provide for-

(a) Deletion of the requirement on Ireland to set a final date for the withdrawal from use of the remaining non-metric units. This renders the operation of the derogation for the use of the "pint" for draft beer and cider and "troy ounce" for precious metals as permanent rather than indefinite. The option remains to withdraw these units on a voluntary basis.

(b) Deletion of the limit date on the use of supplementary indications in non-metric units and to allow products to bear dual markings into the future without time restriction.

(c) Update of the definitions of units to include the new unit "katal" which was agreed internationally by General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) since the Directive was last amended and other minor technical changes to allow the metric (SI system of units) to be documented legally as adopted internationally.

(d) Extension of the scope in line with the current legislative remit of the European Union as amended by the Treaties. It is important to note though, that the scope is therefore also confined within the objective of the establishment and functioning of the internal market and in particular with those issues concerning health, safety, environmental protection and consumer protection.

1 O.J. No. L39, 15.2.1980, p.40.

2 O.J. No. L114, 7.5.2009, p.10.

3 O.J. No. L2, 3.1.1985, p.11.

4 O.J. No. L357, 7.12.1989, p28.

5 O.J. No. L34, 9.2.2000, p.17.