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

I welcome the introduction of administrative fines. The political system has long wanted this and it was continually blocked by legal advice. It is great to see it lifted. The problem with a lot of these cartels and the abuse of dominance is the burden of proof. I know administrative fines will probably allow the Department to be less selective in what cases it pursues but will there be a lower barrier to taking on big players? It is well known we have very limited competition in many sectors, including banking, telecommunications and insurance. They fight tooth and nail if there is any suggestion of taking them on. I would like an understanding of this.

My next question is on new technologies creating dominance of a sort we would not have typically considered. The control of data is now a new source of dominance. Is this adequately embraced by what we call abuse of dominance in competition law? It seems there are many new sources of potential dominance coming in. Has the law caught up on this? We have seen some cases where it has been challenged.

The Bill will introduce specific offences on rigging. Are there other specific offences we need to contemplate? Is the Department working on further legislation, either on specific offences or powers, to get to grips with the changing competitive environment?