Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies Carthy and Martin Browne for the amendments. While a key function of the regulator is to analyse and report on price and market in the agricultural and food supply chain, it is not appropriate to specify in granular detail in primary legislation what aspects of the agricultural and food supply chain should be examined. We believe that the regulator needs to have the flexibility and capacity to direct its resources in a way that makes the most impact and that delivers the best results. I consider that it is for the regulator to independently determine that and what aspects of the supply chain require analysis, and for the regulator to comply as well with any request by the Minister, as provided for in section 12(4), to study or analyse and report on any specified matter relating to the agricultural food supply chain.

The amendment requires that the regulator "shall" collate the costs associated with the production of different foodstuffs. It might legally require the regulator to spend time on foodstuffs that are not seen as particularly relevant at any given time and to use up the regulator's resources in doing that. What we need to do is ensure that the regulator has the capacity and flexibility to direct resources at things that make a difference and an impact in parts of the food supply chain where the attention is required. We do not want people sitting in offices in various places doing work the legislation compels them to do which may not make a meaningful difference or impact on farmers but simply because the legislation obliges them to do. The resources must be specifically targeted. The regulator has the capacity to do that. The reason we are setting up the regulator is so that it oversees the food supply chain and brings transparency to it, but we must enable it to do that rather than through the legislation specifying in granular detail things that may not make a big difference to farmers themselves and primary producers.