Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 5 November 2025

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment

Engagement with the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission

2:00 am

Mr. Brian McHugh:

I will start at the end. In terms of how we make decisions around what to investigate, we have prioritisation principles under which we focus on the areas where there is the most harm for consumers, and where we can have the biggest impact. We take into account how much resources it would take and the strategic impact in terms of the broader environment, for example, whether there is ongoing legislative work in an area that we could add to.

Groceries will always be a priority for us. This is a huge issue in terms of the amount of household budget that is spent on groceries, so we will always be interested. I mentioned earlier that we do carry out 200 on-site inspections every year across the country. We also perform online inspections. Many of those will be in respect of supermarkets and groceries.

In terms of the number of investigations, when we are doing inspections, there is a form at the start of an investigation. We will engage with supermarkets multiple times to ensure they comply with consumer law. I mentioned the Tesco case, which we prosecuted in terms of pricing and in particular around-----

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