Mr. Fergal O'Leary:

We should not lose sight of the Deputy's original point, which is about the sustainability and viability of those 80,000 households. The Central Bank report published just before the ploughing championship highlighted the difficulties in the sector. In our engagement with this sector, we constantly see people trying to solve problems with competition law which is not the right tool to do that. In looking at buyer power, and issues of sustainability and viability, in the context of the unfair trading practices directive that is coming in, that is where we need something more. It needs something that gets involved and has proper powers, ranging from information and advice to the ability to be able to request information from individual suppliers. These are the types of powers economic regulators, such as ComReg and the Commission for Energy Regulation, have in other markets. That is not in place in the agriculture sector at the moment. To address the problems the Deputy mentions would require a very different set of powers from the ones for which we have responsibility today.