Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

We regularly meet representatives of various sectors. There is a possibility of engaging directly with the sector to agree a voluntary code, but it appears unlikely that will happen. I believe the likelihood is that there will be legislation. Of course there is already legislation and if people came forward with evidence, activities such as demanding hello money would in theory be in conflict with competition legislation. The difficulty is getting evidence to take a prosecution, which is why we need to get a code of practice and get more material published as routine in order that there would be the basis for checking whether there is compliance with the principles. That, unfortunately, appears to be the way to go. I have no great enthusiasm for this because it is another source of regulatory burden, but there needs to be fairness in the balance between the players in the sector. If a voluntary agreement cannot be reached, we will need to take legislative action. The enforcement of that would be down to the competition and consumer authorities. I will probably try to introduce any such legislative proposals in conjunction with the legislation which is due before the House soon.

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