Ms Maria Dunne:

I will explain a little bit of the background. The independent Agri-Food Regulator was established under the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Act 2023. It performs two key functions. It enforces the law on unfair trading practices and it performs a price and market analysis and reporting function. The Commission proposal being discussed today specifically relates to the first of those, namely, the law on unfair trading practices and the ability to share information across member States. On the price and market analysis function, over the last year, the regulator has published welcome analysis on the egg and horticulture sectors. Such reports are important to assist food suppliers in their decision-making. However, while there has been much positive engagement with the regulator from operators that have voluntarily responded to request for information, a few operators did not provide the requested data. As a result, the two reports concerned were published using only publicly available data. In light of its experience with these reports, the regulator has reported to the Minister that it requires enhanced powers to compel businesses to provide financial information that is not in the public domain. The Act itself does not permit the regulator to compel such data. However, the Act provides that the Minister may make regulations on price and market information. I want to stress that there are very strong powers regarding the unfair trading practices regulation. The price and market analysis and reporting function is separate and is not covered by the legislation being discussed.