Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate Deputy Rock on tabling the legislation and I am very happy to co-sponsor it with him. There are numerous cases of this going on, the latest being a few days ago with tickets for the U2 concert. There was reselling in bulk at the very same time that the monopoly seller, Ticketmaster, was sold out. We are not dealing with people who buy a few tickets, then decide they are not going to the concert and sell them. This is an organised industry with potentially very serious profits, bulk purchasing tickets from a monopoly seller.

In the past two days the Minister has published a consultation process. Are we looking at cartel behaviour? Are people violating anti-trust laws or consumer protection laws? Do companies like Seatwave get privileged access to Ticketmaster tickets and so forth? We are dealing not only with important consumer protection but I would like to know, and I have written to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, to find out, whether any of these companies are violating existing laws.

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