John Perry (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael)

The vast majority of the Competition Authority's recommendations have been accepted and implemented, while others have been accepted in principle but not yet implemented. Others have been rejected or overtaken by policy developments.

Requiring a Department of State to notify the authority of its response to recommendations made by the Competition Authority would give considerable power to an unelected statutory body. While the authority may be expert in the field of competition, it does not have the full or wider public policy role of Departments of State. That is a point with which Deputy Dara Calleary, a former Minister of State, must agree. Ministers and Departments must consider issues from more than one policy perspective and weigh competing and conflicting policies against each other. A single, focused, albeit expert, body does not typically bring such wider considerations into its deliberations. As I do not intend to undermine the authority's current role in advising the Government on the competition implications of new legislative measures and do not consider it appropriate to make Ministers and Departments answerable to an unelected statutory body, I am not in a position to accept Deputy Peadar Tóibín's amendment.

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