Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Like the Minister, I want to see the producer getting a fair price for his product. What is happening now is that the producer is not and everybody else is being ripped off. The person buying it on the ground is paying more and the producer is not getting what he should get. I hope this legislation will deal with that. We can go back again to the below-cost selling of drink. The only people affected by this were the poorer people because they did without their food and bought drink. That has been proven.

The Minister talked about France.

When I was the Minister of State who had responsibility for sport certain people within the Department tried to ban sponsorship for sport. Such sponsorship was banned in France and instead of the consumption of drink reducing, it increased.

I want the producer to get a fair share of the price. I do not want the consumer to be ripped off either and there is nobody there to protect them. If supermarkets want to sell a product below cost then that is fine once they pay a fair price to the producer; producers are entitled to a fair price and should get that.