Michael Ahern (Cork East, Fianna Fail)

Off-invoice discounts and rebates in the grocery trade did not just happen because some suppliers and retailers thought it might be a good idea. It happened because while the order allowed suppliers to have their principal terms and conditions of trade about which they had to be open and transparent, which is fine as far as it goes, it also allowed them to operate a system of supplementary terms, keep them a closely guarded secret and negotiate them in an arbitrary way. If that were not bad enough, the order also did not require suppliers to put those supplementary terms on the invoice which meant the retailer was not allowed to pass them on to the consumer.

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