Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)

I thank the Minister. It is welcome that he is in the process of granting or providing the powers but we need to see a timeline. It has been quite a while since the regulators themselves raised the gaps in their powers and it is important that we see movement on this, particularly given how grocery prices are increasing at present. Members of the public need transparency when purchasing products so they will know where their money is going. There also needs to be fairness for producers. The risk – I think this is what is happening – is that producers will not get their fair share of the value of their produce. Therefore, the information is absolutely required. It is important that the regulator can get whatever data it needs to inform its analysis of pricing. Could the Minister give me a timeline for achieving this?

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