Ms Isolde Goggin:

We would absolutely be confident.

I refer first to the area of leniency. It is a tool we have not had available to us. Under the current system where we do the investigation and the courts decide on the sentencing, there is great difficulty in encouraging or incentivising people to come forward with evidence. We have a cartel immunity programme that we worked out with the Director of Public Prosecutions for hard core cartels.

The great thing about the leniency programme, as implemented in other member states, is that the competition agency operates it. It is in control of the process from start to finish, so can encourage people to provide evidence by providing a guarantee that they will get a reduction in fines which does not happen when the investigative and the fining agency are split.

I refer back to bid rigging. We are keen on bid rigging being outlined as an offence in the general scheme. It is sometimes seen as a form of price fixing. We are keen on using screening and have been working with our parent Department and others to consider the issue of getting into the data for public procurement in particular. We are convinced that bid rigging happens in private procurement as well.

However, the public sector is such a big repeat purchaser of goods and services that there is great data to be mined out of that. We are considering potential legislative changes to bring this in, which would represent a substantial detection with an immediate deterrent effect. There is much to be detected and this will help us to do that.