Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)

Competition is a critical and central issue as regards the ability of the State to grow business in the future. Unfortunately, the Government and the troika have always focused on wages when seeking to develop competitive advantage. The State is replete with issues of competitiveness that could be resolved, for instance, the situation of upward-only rents which is putting small businesses out of business on a weekly basis. Grafton Street has the second highest rents in Europe and the fifth highest in the world. This issue is in the gift of the Government to resolve and the resolution of which would make business far more competitive.

I refer to the large number of anti-competitive practices at work, for example, in the concrete industry. Such practices are outside the oversight of the State and they go unpunished. As Deputy Flanagan described very well in his contribution, these practices cost the State a massive amount of money.

This legislation is shockingly weak. The Competition Authority does not have nearly enough resources to do its job properly. A body is being created but the resources have not been provided for it to carry out its functions. It is next to impossible for private individuals to take enforcement cases and I know of such cases which have dragged on for 16 years in the courts, against large, well-resourced organisations. The European Union states that private enforcement needs to be possible and achievable for small Irish businesses to enable them achieve some level of fairness.

Sinn Féin also suggested that a provision for whistleblowing should be included in the process. In Britain, individuals within businesses are incentivised by means of large sums of money to blow the whistle on uncompetitive practices. This is an opportunity missed in this legislation. Lack of competitiveness radically undermines the economy by creating massive costs and results in the loss of thousands of jobs. The State is paying over the odds for products as a result of a lack of competitiveness. Ireland is much less competitive than other states.

Sinn Féin suggested a provision in the Bill for civil fines. As I and another Deputy said, it is a case of BG and AG, a case of Fine Gael before being in Government and Fine Gael after coming into Government. Before being in Government, everyone in Fine Gael and in the Labour Party spoke about getting rid of upward-only rents but as soon as they came into Government this has been thrown off the agenda. There has been a change in heart with regard to civil fines. Sinn Féin strongly encourages the Government to support the amendment to allow for civil proceedings and civil fines so that individual businesses can achieve some level of competition within their markets.

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