Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is special legislation introduced to address a specific problem in the grocery sector which all parties, in Oireachtas committees, have examined. The legislation has a long provenance coming from work done, much of it driven by concerns about primary food suppliers of one type or another. I do not seek to rewrite completely the competition legislation. Our legislation is derived from articles 85 and 86 of the original European Union treaties which are against collusion, price-fixing and abuse of a dominant power. These remain the powers through which we seek to evolve flexibly the management of the marketplace. A considerable new obligation is being proposed and it requires the existence of written contracts, supervision of these contracts and having compliance officers. It requires a set of significant new requirements for very large grocery undertakings, namely those of €50 million and over. We seek to solve in a proportionate way a problem which has been a public interest concern. We do not seek to reinvent our competition legislation.

To graft this legislation, which is designed for a very specific problem, on to every sector is not the approach in the programme for Government nor do I feel it is appropriate. This is targeting a particular set of problems. If it transpires that the Competition Authority identifies problems in other sectors, it can, of course, use its powers and can, obviously, ultimately come back here to the Oireachtas with reports outlining that there are difficulties in the enforcement of the existing legislation. As the sectors evolve, obviously, new challenges will come along. That is why I am not keen to stray into other areas. Today it could be newspapers and magazines, and tomorrow it could be another sector and we would suddenly be creating a huge regulatory structure to be imposed. As we will see later on, some people are looking to bringing down the threshold of business on which this sort of structure would be imposed.

I do not believe it is the right way to go. The purpose here is to tackle an issue highlighted by the Oireachtas committee in the previous Dáil under the chairmanship of Deputy Penrose and by the current Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and Marine under the chairmanship of Deputy Doyle. This is an issue of public concern and that is why we are pursuing it in this way.

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