Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sure that the Minister will agree the last thing we need is another quango. We need an organisation that has real teeth. In the first instance, therefore, we have to ensure that unfair trading practices are outlined, identified and outlawed. That means that the current list of outlawed practices needs to be widely expanded, in my view. Second, we need to see that the enforcement authority has power to pursue breaches of that.

There is legislation before the Dáil at the moment on Committee Stage to give new powers to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission to levy fines of real significance that are based on turnover. It will give the commission new powers to tackle actors who are in breach consumer and competition law. In my view, a real meat regulator that has teeth would have those powers, and more. Will it have those powers? Farmers will quite naturally ask if they will finally see a rebalancing of the relationship between them and the factories, so that they can challenge decisions that are made by factories in relation to prices. This does not necessarily relate to the prices itself, but to the penalties and to the rules that apply at factory level that are set in place to penalise those same farmers.

See this speech in context