Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will begin with Deputy Carthy's point as it speaks to an issue I did not address when we discussed amendment No. 10 and Deputy McNamara's point on mandating the regulator to gather information about the cost of production and so on. The Bill provides for that.

The Bill has been thought about for a long time and given lots of consideration. Section 80(2)(g), for example, provides the capacity to the Minister to make regulations under that section to instruct the regulator to carry out "the collection of price and market information to address issues of lack of transparency and information asymmetry in the food supply chain". Those powers are already in the Bill.

As I said to the Deputy and as I repeatedly say, this Bill has received lots of consideration and the commitment here is to make sure we are introducing legislation that is fit for purpose and can respond and evolve to make sure farmers and primary food producers get the office they need to ensure there is transparency in the food supply chain. That is already provided for. Deputy McNamara asked me to show him where that is in the Bill, and is in the Bill. That answers the Deputy's question on amendment No. 10 as well.

The Deputies discussing this are all smart people and there is an onus on all of them to be honest about what is possible and what is not possible. They are talking about doing something very significant and not one of them has given an example of how it would work.

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