Ms Isolde Goggin:

I will ask my colleague Mr. McHugh to come in on the code of practice. On the point of the devil being in the detail, we really need an holistic view of the process from start to finish where it is clear that whoever grants leniency at the beginning of the process is in a position to implement that at the end of it. If one is in charge of granting leniency then one is also in charge of developing the level of fines at the end of the process. That was the difficulty in the system we had previously, or the system that pertains in criminal investigations whereby the investigative agency and the agency that makes the decision on whether an offence has been committed and on the level of fines are separate. It is strict enough because obviously there needs to be a separation of the investigative and the adjudicative functions in the interests of natural justice, which is very clear. One cannot have a leniency programme, however, if one is not in charge of determining the ultimate level of the fine. This was one of our concerns. We absolutely understand and respect the need for the provisions of natural justice but we are aware that there are lots of agencies in this space in the EU that are not huge. We would look particularly at the Scandinavian and the Baltic agencies that are relatively small agencies in relatively small countries, and they seem to be able to do this to the satisfaction of the European Court of Justice, ECJ. We cannot see why Ireland would not be able to do it. I will ask Mr. McHugh to address the code of practice issue, and then I will come back in on the consumer protections.