Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A couple of points have been raised already. There was quite a bit of discussion of the groceries order. Up until the last 12 months of the life of that order, there were few complaints about it. It was driven by a high-profile campaign and the Minister at the time abolished it. Members may recall hearing me say on numerous occasions that I was so disappointed with this regulation at a European level was because I thought there was capacity to ban below-cost selling across the EU, which would be a game changer. Recognising that most of our product is exported, mostly within the EU, that would have been a positive step. I was disappointed there was not stronger support at an Irish level, including from the Government. The Minister said there can be different impacts and that he saw no evidence regarding legislation similar to the groceries order to ban the below-cost retail selling of perishable foods. Has he conducted or does he plan to conduct an analysis of whether these laws are in place in other jurisdictions and what their strengths and weaknesses are, along with a full impact assessment of a potential ban on below-cost selling?