Ms Clare McNamara:

The Deputy is correct about our position on the corruption index. One of our biggest problems around the CCPC and its predecessors is that they have not had the power to impose administrative sanctions.

As a result, if they follow a civil route, the person who is taken to court gets a slap on the wrist and that is it. Certainly people who are breaching competition law will factor the cost of the court cases into the benefits of what they are doing.

In terms of what we believe the Bill will do, we are very confident that it will give the CCPC and ComReg the powers to slap on some significant administrative fines on undertakings that are in significant breach of competition law. We are very confident. When we speak about the index, in terms of competition enforcement the CCPC found itself in competition with all of the EU member states that have the administrative fine facilities that Ireland never had. I mentioned in my opening statement that when the Commission did its review of its own regulation Ireland was singled out in its communication because it did not have a civil fines regime. This is a sea change in terms of competition enforcement in Ireland.