Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

Of course one can get cheaper clothing when one has no clothing industry and can import all one's clothes, just as the UK does. The UK has the same attitude to food because it is a food importing country. Ireland is a food producing nation and some of us would like to hang on to food production in this country. It is an important part of our economy. The representations made by the farming industry and food producers indicated they would like not only to maintain food production but increase the volume. That is a factor which has not arisen in this debate but which will impact on the Minister's decision.

I had hoped to examine the specific proposals in some detail but will confine myself to some general remarks on them. I support the objective of the prohibition of resale price maintenance. It was a practice already proscribed in the groceries order and is simply being restated. It is important that suppliers cannot specify a minimum price for the resale of goods. The Minister said he is strengthening the provision in this enactment. I welcome that and support the Minister in that action. I also support the proposal in section 15(b)(iv) to prohibit a retailer from forcing a supplier to pay "hello money". That was intended in Article 18 of the existing groceries order of 1987 and is being presented again in a clearer and more robust manner. That is fine. These are all the aspects we said we wanted to support in any event.

The main area of contention is the issue of predatory pricing and the Minister's view of it. There is no reference in the Bill to predatory pricing. In his Seanad speech, the Minister said that, "hand on heart", this was because it was already prohibited by section 5 of the Competition Act 2002. To bolster the criticised weakness of that Act, the Minister takes refuge in defined European case law. I am always suspicious when legislators prefer to depend on precedents in case law rather than clarity of legislation. If the Minister wants to be clear on predatory pricing, let us as legislators collectively enact clear legislation rather than say that although case law under the Competition Act is weak enough, the judgments of the courts are clearer and we do not want to dislodge those. That is not the normal way in which legislators carry out their business.

What do we mean by predatory pricing? There is a variety of definitions and the Minister added more in his speech. The general view is that it will be all right on the night, a dominant position is what a dominant position will be determined to be and the courts will decide it. As a legislator, I would prefer if we decided these matters.

I would like to say much more but I know my time has expired.

We will get a chance to tease out these matters in some detail on Committee Stage. I have had an open mind to this debate from the start. I wanted to see if a compelling case would be presented. In all the documentation — God knows enough documentation has been produced — I have not read a compelling case. This is a classic example of a decision being made and the argument being marshalled to support the decision rather than the other way around. In any event we will tease out these matters. The Minister has embarked on a risky strategy without any clear justification and it is an unwise move, which I hope we can at least ameliorate on Committee Stage.

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