Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As Ms Goggin said, we are talking about hundreds of millions of euro.

I will focus on the leniency regime referred to in the submission and on which Ms Goggin elaborated. Recently, the Data Protection Commission, DPC, issued a fine of €450,000. To us, that may be a substantial amount of money but to those who were fined, it is not. International and European agencies commented on this case. For example, it was stated that in Germany, the fine would have been somewhere between €7 million and €22 million. I am not suggesting that the case in question will establish a precedent for the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission but something of a precedent has been established. Will the CCPC have the necessary resolve to go hard after the guilty parties and to issue fines in the context of the leniency regime? Will the fines issued reflect international best practice? Clearly, a €450,000 fine for a multilbillion euro company is not an effective deterrent.