Ms Isolde Goggin:

We cannot look without evidence to see whether there is a cartel. For example, looking at what goes on in the market, stuff that would trigger suspicions would be an unexplained price rise across the board without an underlying explanation. If the market is very transparent and everyone knows what the prices are, it would not necessarily be suspicious if the Government put the VAT rate up and everyone then put their prices up as people would still be trying to cover the costs and they would have an increased cost. On the other hand, there is bid rigging in circumstances where each bid should be secret from the other competitors. If one bid comes in at X% and everyone else comes in at exactly 10% below it, that kind of evidence would trigger suspicions.