Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I accept and acknowledge that the committee had reached a consensus and brought forward a recommendation that was accepted by the Minister. I will not, therefore, press for a vote on this amendment. This is one area, though, where I ask the Minister and the Department to include a commitment to review it after some time. The truth with these levels of fines, where we are talking about €10 million or even €50 million, is that most of the findings of the regulator concerning companies, we imagine, will come nowhere near either figure. In some instances, we know there can be very large corporate forces for which sizeable penalties would be required to dissuade or prevent further recurrences in this context. As I said, I will not press this amendment in acknowledgement of the Minister having accepted the committee's own report, but I suggest and request that this aspect will be kept under review. I do not know how easy it is to amend these types of things, but if there is any review and amendment of this legislation, I ask that this be one of the areas that we examine for effectiveness.