Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to see the proposals for legislation in regard to controlling to make sure farmers get a proper price for their product. What worries me is that we had the recent measures for below-cost selling of drink in supermarkets and we now discover that a survey in Scotland, which did the same thing, found the people who paid most for this were poor people because they did without food but they still had their drink. In Ireland, what happened was that where the price of drink went up, the Government gained nothing and it went to the supermarkets.

Will this commission really have the power to go in and investigate? We have so many agencies in this State, so many CEOs and so many people getting paid by the taxpayer and I never hear anything from them. We have recently seen the price of petrol and diesel going up but I never hear of anyone from the State going in to check that. There was a situation on 1 May where the carbon tax went on. The only thing that came under that was coal, briquettes and home heating oil, but every station in the country put up petrol and diesel by a few cent that week, yet I never heard from those involved in consumer affairs in any of these organisations that the taxpayer of this country is paying for. I am just asking the question. Is this going to be another toothless outfit with jobs for the boys and girls? Will it have any power? Will it be prepared to go in and do what has to be done? Are we just going to get another quango that we will all be paying for, as taxpayers, and it will have a big chief executive and a big staff, and nothing will happen? I want to know from the Minister if it is going to have power and if it is going to do the job, or will it be like the county managers now, full of power and no action?