Michael Ahern (Cork East, Fianna Fail)

——and combined with the authority's cartel immunity programme and the recruitment of gardaí to the ranks of the authority should send a clear signal to anyone considering price fixing or cartel membership or participation that this type of anti-competitive behaviour is not acceptable and competition law will be enforced in this regard.

In addition to these criminal cases, the authority also pursues anti-competitive behaviour by way of civil action. Since 2002, the authority agreed settlement terms in 15 cases without the need to initiate legal proceedings and has settled 14 cases prior to the cases going to a hearing. A further three cases proceeded to a hearing.

In addition to confronting hard-core criminal activity, the authority, via its advocacy role, plays a proactive role in tackling other anti-competitive practices and restricted legislative shelters. Under the provisions of section 30 of the Competition Act 2002, the authority may "study and analyse any practice or method of competition affecting the supply and distribution of goods or the provision of services or any other matter relating to competition".

On foot of a 2001 OCED report, regulatory reform in Ireland, which suggested that competition in the professional services sector in Ireland could be stronger, the Competition Authority undertook a study of eight professions: engineers, architects, dentists, optometrists, veterinary surgeons, medical practitioners and solicitors and barristers. In respect of each of these professions, the authority's strategy was to first release a preliminary report containing initial proposals for improving competition and thereby allowing a period of consultation with interested parties before the publication of a final report. To date, studies of six professions have been completed, while the remaining two studies on veterinary surgeons and medical practitioners are expected to be published in 2008.

The authority has also produced reports on the liquor licensing laws, published in September 1998; the bus and rail passenger transport sector, published in 1999; the casual trading sector, published in 2002; the insurance market regarding non-life insurance, published in March 2005; the banking sector in Ireland regarding non-investment banking, published in September 2005; and competition in the private health insurance market, published in January 2007.

The recommendations contained in a number of the reports produced have been generally welcomed by those to whom they are addressed. While the authority has no legal basis to "require" the implementation of its final recommendations, it regularly reviews the position in relation to implementation. As part of that process, it engages with all those to whom recommendations were directed with a view to progressing their implementation.

At this point I wish to stress the importance of the public's role in assisting the Competition Authority's campaign to stamp out anti-competitive behaviour. In order to stop anti-competitive behaviour, the authority needs to be aware that abuse is taking place and this is where the public has a role to play via the authority's complaints mechanism. The authority has substantial powers to investigate complaints if it has reasonable grounds for suspecting that a breach of competition law has taken place. When the information provided through complaints is sufficient to give the authority reasonable grounds for suspicion, a formal investigation may be launched. Where information does not point towards a breach of the law, it may inform other aspects of the authority's work, for example, the review of statutory regulations which may have unintended anti-competitive effects.

I understand the history of the Bill stems from a 2004 decision by the Competition Authority in which it took a view that self-employed actors were "undertakings" within the meaning of the 2002 Competition Act. For the record, "undertakings" mean "a person being an individual, a body corporate or an unincorporated body of persons engaged for gain in the production, supply or distribution of goods or the provision of a service". As I said earlier, section 4 of the 2002 Act forbids all agreements that have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition, including price fixing, and in doing so it reflects the provisions of Article 81 of the EC Treaty.

Following the authority's investigation into possible price fixing among self-employed actors and advertising agencies, it took the view that an agreement between the Irish Actors Equity SIPTU branch, on behalf of actors, and the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland, on behalf of advertising agencies, breached the provisions of section 4 of the Competition Act.

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