Mr. Tim Cullinan:

I want to make a further point before the Deputy comes back in. He asked how can we get a solution to this problem. The establishment of the office of a food ombudsman was part of the unfair trading practices directive. The Deputy will recall we had a beef task force. The Department commissioned Grant Thornton to carry out an investigation into the margins along the supply chain, to ascertain what margin the retailer had and what margin the processor had. We all know the result of that was that we did not get an answer. The Deputy rightly probed that also. I was a member the beef task force for the final year of its term. When we were not able to get that information, the Minister came before the task force and committed to introducing primary legislation to establish a food regulator to strengthen the powers of the ombudsman.

I would like to hear from this committee that we would get its support to ensure that when the legislation comes on to the floor of the Dáil, the regulator would get proper powers. There is no point in introducing legislation if it is not targeted in the right direction. By that I mean the person appointed must have the power to ascertain where the margin is at. We know one thing for certain, the margin is not with the farmer at present. We are open and transparent. We are willing to show our margin. I ask the committee for its support in bringing forward that request to the Minister to ensure when this legislation comes on to the floor of the Dáil it will be effective and the person appointed will be able to check the margin along the food supply chain. We do not want to revert to what we had with the Grant Thornton report when it failed to find out the answer to that question for us.