Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Do members have any further questions? Deputy Dara Calleary sent his apologies; he had hoped to be present because this is an issue on which he has been focusing, together with Senator Michael Mullins and myself. We want to work on this issue. The Retail Ireland report brought it our attention and helped us to focus on this issue. Our plan is that we will host meetings around the country to try to engage with people who have been affected by retail crime and the sale of black-market goods. We will listen to their ideas and solutions and engage with the other Ministers to try to bring their Departments to focus on this issue. We will not solve the whole problem, but it would be silly not to try. Jobs are at stake and if we succeed in tackling the problem, we could generate money that would mean other cuts and changes were not necessary.

I thank the delegation from Retail Ireland for focusing our attention on this problem. We will engage further with Retail Ireland and Mr. Hickey in the next couple of months. We will meet members of Retail Ireland at their regional meeting in Kilkenny.