Ms Tara Buckley:

On the point concerning the Competition Authority and the National Consumer Agency, RGDATA has probably not had a very smooth relationship with both of these agencies, mainly because of our frustration. We raised many issues with them during the years in regard to the frustration of independent retailers who considered they were being bullied by large and monopoly suppliers, some of which were semi-State companies. We found that we were not listened to very much and that we were being led down long, dark paths by the Competition Authority which took a long time to assess our complaints and which would eventually come back to us to state it was not really an issue for it. We are talking about issues such as newspaper distribution and the availability of stamps to retailers.

These are simple things which is why we are supportive of a grocery code of practice because we would like it to apply equally to the large suppliers who are supplying small independent retailers and those relationships in so far as they can be managed and be competitive and sustainable. The National Consumer Agency consistently tells us that it does not deal with the business-to-business relationship and that it only deals with the relationship with the consumer. We are often the small guy with a frustrating relationship with a very large supplier or monopoly provider and we need somebody to intervene in those situations.