Mr. Arnold Dillon:

I do not envisage any issues with retailers when it comes to the fulfilment of that remit by the new office. In certain circumstances there are already obligations on retailers when it comes to disclosure of certain pricing information. A lot of information on relationships with suppliers is commercially sensitive and I do not envisage it being covered by the work of this office, but there is already a raft of information available publicly, and the CSO collates data regularly. We have had experience working with the Department over the past year on recently introduced new EU transparency measures on the collection of data for mince and butter, as I cited. Members had certain concerns about how those data were collected and how they would be used to ensure they were presented in a way that accurately reflected what was going on in the market. Those data were going to the European Commission, so there were also concerns that the data collected in Ireland would be comparable to the similar data that were being collected in other member states. There are therefore sometimes specific issues that need to be looked at when it comes to how data are collected and used. I would be very keen to be engaged with the office in representing the retail perspective in that discussion.