Mr. Fergal O'Leary:

The unfair trading practices directive needs to be transposed by April 2021. The CCPC is an agency and we are not responsible for policy formulation. We have views on how best to transpose the directive and we have made them clear at the agriculture committee. We have also written to our parent Department and to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. A working group of the Departments of Business, Enterprise and Innovation and Agriculture, Food and the Marine is working on the transposition at the moment. I understand there will be a public consultation in the next couple of weeks and we will give our view to that. The decisions are, ultimately, matters for the Departments and the Government but we will give our views, as we have done all along.

A comparison was made between what we do and what the grocery code adjudicator does in the UK, which is like night and day. It is completely different. The 2016 grocery regulations cover 27 entities and the basic rule is fairly straightforward. If there is a contract, pretty much everything is allowed. The regulations are about transparency and certainty for the players. The unfair trading practices, UTP, directive which is coming down the tracks is completely different and will be slightly more analogous to what is done in the UK. It will take a more holistic view of the market. The grocery code adjudicator has a mediation role and she has more powers that what is currently being envisaged in the UTP directive. It is about market design and economic regulation. It deals with how a market is set up to balance the needs of primary producers, aggregators, wholesalers and retailers. In the long term, a sectoral regulator would allow for more intervention in the market but, as an agency, we are not responsible for deciding what the answers are for this issue.

The sale of vegetables at very low cost is not something in which we have any role or function at the moment. The topic came up when we were in front of the agriculture committee 18 months ago. It can be good for some consumers if they can buy groceries cheaply. An issue arises, however, if it is not sustainable. If it can only happen by putting a producer out of business, we could not sit here and say it was a good idea. However, we see loss leaders all the time, on alcohol and other things that are less good for society. There is a need to ask where the harm is done and whether there is a benefit to these practices. We do not have the powers to police goods being sold below cost. The groceries order was abolished, though I do not believe it applied to perishable goods in any event.