Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I am extremely disappointed with the way this legislation has been stream-rolled through the House. The Minister of State acknowledged that a significant number of amendments were logical and would have been beneficial but they were not accepted. I am afraid we are handing over the entire grocery trade to big business at the expense of small traders. Nobody will contest the theories on consolidation and economy of scale but small Irish towns and villages will be completely bereft of a grocery service to their inhabitants, who comprise pensioners, families on low incomes and others who do not have transport. They will be expected to travel more than ten miles to a super store to purchase their goods at rip-off prices once the small traders are despatched.

The Bill has clear deficiencies. The definitions of "predatory pricing", "market dominance" and so on have not been dealt with adequately and this legislation has been exposed on all Stages of its passage regarding these issues. That is most unacceptable. The Government has caved in and amended legislation to facilitate IKEA while legislation has also been amended to facilitate incineration companies. In this instance, legislation is being amended to facilitate the grocery trade while further changes will result following the passage of the major infrastructure Bill. People in small towns and villages such as Shercock, Hackballscross and Ballyjamesduff in the north east will not have basic grocery services because of lobbying by big business, which the Government has fallen for again, and that is most unfortunate.

The Minister of State has also missed a significant opportunity to deal with the issue of freelance workers and their right to be collectively represented. They are not high fliers swanning about on our television screens. They are poor people struggling to eke out a living, whether they are freelance journalists, actors, playwrights and so on. There was duplicity in the debate. A Minister told us the appropriate legislation for such change would be the Industrial Relations Act. That is not the case. The Competition Authority, which used a block in this instance, was established under the Competition Bill. This Bill could have adequately dealt with this important issue for significant numbers of people. It is unfortunate that opportunity was not taken. I am disappointed by that and therefore oppose the Bill.

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