Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Deputy to allow me to finish. The situation I have outlined was and is not desirable. We must have a situation where more efficient businesses can compete on price and adopt aggressive price strategies if they so choose. All of the issues to which the Deputy referred such as suppliers being obliged to pay for shelf space and so on will have to be regulated, which is what we are doing in the Bill. It seeks to protect suppliers within this process, but it is not seeking to revert to provisions which the Deputy's own leader in government removed because they were not delivering benefits for the consumer. All these provisions served to do was to allow certain parts of the supply chain to set prices for themselves. The judgment taken by the Government at the time was that this was not in the interests of consumers. Therefore, the power then available under legislation to set minimum prices was removed. We are seeking to ensure there are fair practices within the marketplace and have set out detailed provisions in that regard. We are not trying to set prices or say what a price should be in the marketplace. That is not the purpose of any Department.