Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the comprehensive and detailed presentation. It is one I will take away and study in detail. It contains so much information that, until I analyse it, there seem to be few questions left that need to be asked.

I would like a further comment on the reported cartel operating within the beef industry in terms of price fixing or communication within the sector before prices are advertised or announced. There is a line of thought that prices do not need to be fixed too much in the sense that, although they are named differently, many of the processors quoting prices are under the one umbrella. The CCPC plays a role in the case of mergers, acquisitions and takeovers.

We are talking about the beef sector, so when in that particular sector, for example, would the commission call stop? An evident takeover of an industry by an individual company gaining more and more power has not happened yet. When a person owns the job lot, he or she does not need communication with his or her competitors, because that person does not have that many competitors. He or she can name the price and does not need to fixed it at all. The person sets it and names it, and people have to take it because of that person's power. There have been a number of takeovers and mergers in recent years, all of which the CCPC would have been consulted about at the time and none of which, from memory, it stopped or even flagged issues with. I am open to correction on that. How big would one ownership within a certain sector need to be before the commission would flag it as being a possible breach? Where or when would the CCPC shout stop, and do the witnesses not think they could or should have shouted stop already in some instances within the beef sector?