Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses this evening from the CCPC. As Senator Boyhan said, I thank them for their submission and opening statement. I have no doubt we will be taking their suggestions on board when we draw up our final report. I have enough information in that regard.

I will ask the witnesses do that which is somewhat impossible - to look into the future for the purposes of debate and assume that the office of fairness and transparency in the agrifood supply chain is up and running. According to what we have in front of us now, there may be some tweaks before that happens. How do the witnesses see the new office's role align with the CCPC's role? How will they complement each other? Are there going to be any grey areas between?

I will use an example for the purposes of debate. Prior to the new office's inception, if I or anyone else reckoned there was a cartel in the beef industry, which has happened in the past because we have had the CCPC here before, I would go to the CCPC. I assume I would be sent to the new office once it is up and running. Would the CCPC send me to the new office? Basically, what I am simply trying to get at is how the CCPC can see its role changing. Will it enhance or inhibit its role? How does it see that marriage? The CCPC will still be in existence. The new office will be taking some of the work, such as the example I just gave that would have gone to the CCPC. How do the witnesses see the relationship between the CCPC and this new body going forward? Do they think they will be helpful to each other or that it could cause some conflict or issues for the CCPC going back as a form of identity of its role within the whole system in agriculture and in the competition side of it? I know the CCPC will still probably be dealing with the consumer but from farmer to retailer, that whole competition side, will the CCPC then be losing that role? Has anybody told the CCPC what its new role will be in it? Has it any vision of how it will work with the new body? How does it see that working?

Call it naivete or whatever I had before I read any of the CCPC's documentation, but I had an impression that it would have perhaps come here almost opposing this because the new office was going to be taking the CCPC's clothes and that the commission would be circling the wagons. I was a bit taken aback by the positivity in its documentation. That triggered to me the question of how these people see this working with them post its enactment.