Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I begin by addressing an important issue I have been seeking to raise in this House for some time. Competition law is being mischievously used to attack the rights of certain workers, particularly actors, musicians, film crews and freelance journalists, to be collectively represented. When this competition legislation was going through the House, guarantees were given that this situation would not occur.

It is ridiculous that these low paid workers are targeted while others, such as newspaper groups, CRH and the self-regulating professions, receive little attention. In this regard, the unions have accurately observed that the Competition Authority has the wrong target. The Minister has indicated he is unwilling to make legislative changes to address the position in which these workers find themselves. This is deplorable. I call on the Minister to amend the Industrial Relations Acts in respect of the definition of employee to rectify this unacceptable situation.

I also take this opportunity address the issue of the self-regulating professions. I look forward to a review in this regard but I remind Deputy Carey that action is needed. We must make tackling self-regulation by the professions a priority. We need to look at how people are being served by this system and if it allows for unreasonable profiteering by elite groups. Examples of the self-regulating professions include the legal and medical professions.

Many of these self-regulating professions have formed a type of monopoly system where it becomes hard to get into the profession, the numbers of entrants are limited and so on. The failure of the Government to address self-regulation by the professions, which has long been shown to be anti-competitive, illustrates the selectivity of the establishment when it comes to the issue of competition. The necessity for competition is absolute when it comes to breaking up profitable State companies but not so when it comes to tackling monopolies by the establishment's cronies. The notion of self-regulation by the professions is outdated and should be brought to an end.

This debate also is a timely opportunity to discuss the lack of competition in the newspaper market. The impact of this was seen some weeks ago when the titles controlled by Independent News and Media all carried false and misleading reports about the death of Liam Lawlor. I have previously asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the reason the Government has failed to ensure the enforcement of the Competition Authority's ruling that Independent News and Media must divest itself of its 24.9% shareholding in another company. This followed the securing of control of the Irish Press Group by the company in 1994. Those titles ceased publishing some six months later, prompting calls for a review of media ownership.

There has been no satisfactory response from the Government in respect of this matter. Is the real reason the Government has failed to ensure the enforcement of the Competition Authority's ruling the fact that it fears that doing so will cause it to suffer the wrath of the media mogul? There is clear evidence from what emerged at the Moriarty tribunal that Independent News and Media would not hesitate to do this. It came to light during the course of that tribunal that Anthony O'Reilly threatened the rainbow coalition that it would lose the Independent group as friends if the latter's demands were not met. An editorial was subsequently put on the front page of one of its newspapers on election day calling on voters not to vote for the parties of that Government.

Independent News and Media also owns 29.9% of the Sunday Tribune and effectively controls the paper. From evidence in the deterioration in its quality, it seems the company is keeping the paper going merely as a false competitor for its main Sunday newspapers. I questioned the Minister through both written and oral questions regarding this monopoly yet none of his responses, including some received yesterday give any sense that he is taking this issue seriously. The Minister is standing over a situation where elitist self-regulating professions and media monopolies are ignored while low paid freelance workers are targeted. This is shameful position for the Government to adopt.

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