Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has assessed it and reviewed studies that have found that laws banning below-cost selling have often failed to safeguard the parties they aim to protect. There is no evidence from the research on this so far to suggest that such a ban works. We can look at our own national experience of when this was in place in the late 1990s or early 2000s. There was no sense that this had a benefit for farmers or food producers, but it added complexity, administration and red tape to the supply chain. It ultimately led to increased prices for consumers but there was no evidence it led to increased prices for primary producers or farmers. France has tried to do something, which has not worked out. There is a case centred on below-cost selling in Spanish law. The European Court of Justice raised issues regarding compliance with EU law. No matter what one requires people to sell a product for, it does not necessarily change their behaviour relating to how they purchase it. If we required our supermarkets and retailers to sell products at a certain level from the supermarket shelves, the idea that, as a result, purchasers would give a good price to the people who supply them does not stand up to scrutiny.

Ultimately, we want to ensure there is respect for the need for proper margins in the engagement between sellers and primary producers. I have seen no evidence that banning below-cost selling achieves that. We trialled this for more than 20 years in our own country and it failed. It sounds grand as a sound bite but there has been no evidence to support the idea. Any evidence we have is to the contrary.